The Dark Before Dawn
by Matteoarts
Summary: A mysterious Guardian has arrived, claiming to be the sole survivor of a fireteam that ventured further into the moon than any dared before. With her help, the Heroes and Seekers learn of an ancient evil that now stirs in its depths; Crota. All six must band together to prevent his soul from ever escaping into our world again, or all will be lost.
1. Prologue

The flames from the wreckage stood out against the night background, a beacon to anything or anyone curious enough to venture too close. Oddly enough, they were a bright orange, but mixed in with green tinges of flame that apparently was of some different chemical makeup than standard.

The two Hunters that now approached it took caution. The ship itself looked to be a fellow Guardian's, but miscellaneous items scattered the surrounding area of the impact such as skulls, several bones, and lots of ash. A mysterious green orb with a shard of crystalline rock stood stationary upon the ground. The first scout looked over to the second and shrugged.

"What the hell do you make of this?" Before the second could answer, they both heard an audible groan from within more of the wreckage. They leapt into action, and began pulling away rubble and debris to reach the individual trapped inside. With one last pull of a particularly large and jagged chunk of metal, a woman tumbled out of a makeshift hole in the side of the cockpit.

"Are you alright? You seem to have-" The second scout's question died in his throat as the survivor looked up at him and the extent of her face was exposed. She was pale white like bone, but not even the ghastly coloration of her skin could compare to the freakish appearance of her face; instead of the usual limit of two eyes that normal human possessed, a third eye was positioned in the central region between the other two, and slightly above them. All three glowed with a bright greenish aura. If the scout hadn't known better, he would have claimed that she was part Hive.

Her hands shot up from the ground to grasp his shoulders, and she shook him heavily. "I have seen our destruction firsthand! His green fire will spread throughout our strongholds, purging us from our homes and smoking us out to be skewered on the blade of his sword!"

The scout tried to brush her hands off of him hurriedly. "Hold on a minute lady, what are you talking about? Who's coming after you?"

" _Not I, but us!"_ she said emphatically. "Humankind as a whole, we are all equally hated by him, and his wrath will not cease until he has scoured all of us from reality!"

"Who?" asked the first scout, repeating his partner's question. Her head snapped toward the sound of his voice, and he could see clearly the nature of her face, as well as the black liquid substance that flowed from each eye.

" _Crota."_


	2. Skirmish in the Snow

A light snow fell upon the ground, blanketing the landscape in fluffy white powder. The outskirts of the city near the wall were usually barren and empty of any kind of life save for the Ghosts that would harvest spinmetal from the outer rim, but when the winter came, a different kind of beauty came upon it, the kind that can only be achieved through simple observation and silence.

Of course, the spectators on either side of the marked track in the snow were not very adequate at either of these at the moment.

A wide stretch of road had been constructed in a makeshift fashion, shoveling snow from the center of the track and moving it to either side to form small walls of the powder. On either side of the track were people, citizens of the city and Guardians alike. They all stood in the snow, shuffling their feet every so often to keep circulation flowing to their toes in the cold. They all looked down one direction of the track, eagerly awaiting the arrival of something.

Aria did as so many others were doing, and stomped her feet into the ground slightly to bring feeling back into them. "I hope she comes around soon, it's freezing!" Despite having dressed for the occasion with a rather thick coat, and snow boots, she still shivered in the cold climate.

Matt gave an involuntary shake every now and then, but was fine for the most part. He'd lived in London for the most recent years of his past life, and had prepared himself for a long trek across Russia before he'd been mugged. Of course he'd had to accumulate to cold weather, and he was pretty much used to it, hence why he was just dressed in a simple jacket and jeans, though he had selected some warm shoes for the event.

"It's not that cold, you can manage." The slightly sarcastic response came from Dawn, who stood next to Eager a few feet away. She and the Warlock both wore their black undersuits, signature of all Guardians, with jackets as an external layer and simple shoes. Aria pointed emphatically at their attire as a point for her claim.

"For you guys maybe! All you have to do as Exos is turn off your neuro-sensors, and instantly no more cold!" Dawn and Eager chuckled slightly at Aria's accusation, mostly because the Awoken girl was right. The other part was due to the fact that despite being one of the Heroes, Aria was still the youngest of the two teams besides Scorch, and often acted as such.

Ash meanwhile, stood on Matt's left, leaning against him with her hand intertwined in his. "D-don't worry Aria, you're n-not the only cold one." Unlike her fellow exos, she wore her regular jacket with the hood pulled up and over her head, and some warm pants.

"Why don't you turn off your sensors too, Ash? Looks like you could use it," commented Eager with a smirk on his face. Ash shook her head.

"Well, that may be true. But certain senses I would lose in the process, like touch…" she said with a slight smile, looking down to where her hand lay within Matt's, "…make it worth it." Matt returned her smile with a grin of his own, and she nested her head on his shoulder.

Suddenly, a faint rumbling could be heard from down the track. Everyone craned their necks towards the sound, and looked down the path of paved snow. At first there was nothing, and then several black specks appeared at the edge of a hill.

"Here they come!" called Matt. All five Guardians focused their attention on the speck in the middle as it grew bigger in their field of vision, eventually forming a true appearance…

Within seconds, the sparrow-racers flew by them in a flurry of snow and wind. The spectators all cheered, their hands pumping into the air to signify their excitement. Aria cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled, "Go Scorch!"

Scorch piloted the sparrow with lethal accuracy. She'd seen her friends on the side of the track as she'd flown by, and smiled that they were here to cheer her on. Pulling the handles of her sparrow to the right, she began to lean so that she could round the upcoming turn without losing ground to the other competitors.

After their success in finding the Heroes nearly eight months ago, the Vanguards had worked to compensate all of the citizens that they'd accidentally neglected in the aftermath of the battle for the Traveler. In addition to that, some high-end city task force officials had seen how fun sparrow-racing was, and had turned it into a legal sport complete with its own league. There were many more regulations now that it wasn't a gambler's way to earn money, but that didn't make it any less fun. Scorch had immediately signed up, just so she had something else to do when she wasn't on official Guardian business.

Spectre's voice spoke in her racing helmet. "I'm sure you already noticed them, but you've got two racers coming up on either side of you."

Scorch smiled. "Thanks for the warning, but like you said; I noticed. They're gonna try to sandwich me." Indeed, each racer had lined themselves on Scorch's right and left. She waited for the strike, when they would jerk towards her and prevent her from gaining speed. After several moments, the signature movement of their sparrows coming in for collision alerted her, and she punched the reverse thrusters. She narrowly avoided them, and the two racers hit each other instead. Looping around and past them as they recovered from the impact, she sped ahead and gained a healthy lead.

She gave a small whoop of excitement and continued ahead, spectators cheering her on the whole way.

-X-

To Cayde-6, it seemed like every damn time that peace and quiet ever came close to reality, something came along to trash that idea.

He'd seen some weird stuff over the years, but this was among the oddest. Two city task force scouts were helping to carry a woman between them, dressed all in black garb. Her skin was pale, like she'd been sitting somewhere dark for far too long. She was definitely in need of a tan.

Moving to the end of the Vanguard's table, the two set her down on the ground. "Vanguards, my partner and I found her this morning while investigating a disturbance in the outskirts of the city." The one near her head had begun to talk first, and looked to them for any kind of information they could provide.

"What kind of disturbance?" asked Zavala, as he moved from his opposite end of the table to get a closer look.

"Some civilians reported seeing something fall from the sky in the night. We found a ship, modified with odd external cosmetics and spouting green flames that had crashed there. She was still inside, but we managed to pull her out. She kept muttering incoherently the whole way here." Indeed, the woman stirred and with it came a string of words. "Must… warn them… the others… all dead…"

Cayde bent down for a closer look. "What the hell is wrong with her head? Is that a third eye?" The second scout shrugged. "Yeah, we don't have a clue what that's about either. I'm sure that the Warlocks will have a field day trying to figure that one out."

The Hunter had a puzzled expression on his face before he raised one hand up and covered the woman's third eye with it. "I knew there was something familiar about her! I was just getting a bit weirded out by… well, frankly the creepy-ass eye in the middle of her forehead."

Ikora looked at him. "You know her?" Cayde nodded. "Her name is Eris Morn. She and I were both Hunter trainees together, mentored by the previous Hunter Vanguard. We, uh…" His hand reached around and held the back of his neck in an awkward expression. "We didn't always see eye to eye. Or in her case now, eye to eye to eye."

One of the scouts raised his hand. "I think you missed an eye. I mean, she has three eyes right? So you would have four total, all of her three plus yours." Cayde tilted his head. "But then wouldn't it be five eyes? Because I have two… come to think of it, why do we say 'eye to eye' instead of 'eyes to eyes'? Nobody has just one eye- well, except for this girl I once met in a bar, she was quite the-"

Zavala waved their banter aside. "That doesn't matter right now. We need to understand her condition, where she's come back from, what happened to her-" With a start, Eris Morn began to cough heavily, and the first scout knelt down to help her sit up properly. She continued to make choking noises until she'd cleared out whatever she'd had in her system, and looked to the audience around her.

"Good to see you're back in the land of the living," declared Cayde, joking as usual. It just seemed to be the way he dealt with situations as they came. Eris narrowed her eyes at him. "I know you. You're… Cayde-6. The tiresome Exo that trained alongside me."

Cayde snorted derisively. "More like, 'the tiresome Exo that kicked ass and became the Hunter Vanguard'. Though I will admit, I wasn't really looking for the job when I got it…" He made a smirk. "So, mourning Morn, what could you have been up to all this time? You look like you've gone to hell and back-"

She was up in an instant, her hand outstretched and falling upon Cayde's collar. She hadn't quite grabbed his throat, but everyone was sure that if she'd wanted to, she wouldn't have had any major problems attaining that. "You know nothing of hell, Cayde. Do not make a mockery of it." With that, she released him.

He stepped away from her, obviously a more wary now that she was alert and awake. She spun on one foot, locking gazes with each person that surrounded her before beginning to intone a somber warning.

"I have returned to tell you all that this city is in danger." Cayde shrugged. "Get in line, I don't think we _haven't_ been in danger for a long time. Battle for the Traveler, the Vault of Glass threat, I mean we're veterans of being damsels in distress by now."

Eris gave him a withering glare. "Not like this. For now, one comes who seeks not to corrupt you, not to simply kill you…" She spoke dramatically, and indeed achieved whatever effect she was aiming for. "He comes simply to destroy you. To slaughter all of humanity like the pigs he believes us to be, ripe for being stuck on the spit!" Her voice had been rising in volume until now she was nearly shouting with emphasis.

"Who is this person? Has the Messenger returned?" asked Ikora quickly. Eris laughed mirthlessly. "That pitiful excuse's aura of darkness is nothing but a slight drop of water compared to _him_ , and the massive oceans of darkness which he commands."

Cayde sighed exasperatedly. "Alright, we get it. Now can you tell us who it is that you're warning us about?" Her lip curled a bit like a snarl at him, but she complied and spoke the name.

" _Crota!"_

Instantly, all present were silent. It felt like the room itself had dropped ten degrees, and each Vanguard tried to process what she'd just said.

"You mean…" started Zavala, "the Hive price? Crota himself is coming?"

Eris nodded. "And sooner than you think. His forces are already here, searching for something to tether his soul back into our reality. We must act quickly if we are to stop him. For all I know, an attack may already be underway."

Normally, there would be all sorts of background checks as to whether her claims held true, but Crota was not a threat to be taken lightly. Ikora immediately nodded at Zavala who knew what to do. Raising his wrist interface up to his mouth, he began to bark orders over the comms.

"Task force, this is Zavala. We need the Heroes and the Seekers back here ASAP. I don't care where they are, just get them here."

-X-

Matt heard the roar of the vehicle's engines before he saw them. Craning his neck up, he was quick enough to see two mobile aircrafts soar overhead, and begin to hover over the finish line. "What's going on Eager? Is this some kind of drill?" he asked, since the Exo was still a part of the city task force. Eager shook his head. "I… I don't know, I haven't heard anything like that. I think this is real."

A moment later, speakers on the vehicles crackled to life, and someone began to talk through them; "Attention, this is the city task force. This event has been cancelled due to a potential threat. All citizens have been instructed to return to their homes, and all Guardians are to report to the tower immediately. This is not a test." The message continued to repeat itself as some of the audience began to boo, albeit while starting to leave.

"This can't be good." Matt felt his stomach turning, the result of adrenaline beginning to course through his system. Seraph materialized in front of him. "Scorch and the other racers don't know about this. Should we do something about it?" Matt thought for a few moments before nodding. They didn't know how serious this was yet, but it obviously wasn't a joke. "Relay my transmission to all of the racers on the track."

Scorch had a few hundred yards to go to the finish line when she saw the task force aircrafts appear overhead. In an instant, her wrist interface lit up. She didn't want to risk losing the race, but this could be important.

"Spectre, broadcast that signal through my helmet." The Ghost was silent, but a moment later she heard Matt's voice speaking; _"…a joke. I repeat, this is not a joke. Something bad is going on, and you all need to start heading in so that we can get out of here."_

Scorch sighed inwardly, but accepted that Matt wouldn't be telling all the racers this if it wasn't real. "Alright, looks like we're gonna have to cut this match short-" She was just about to finish her sentence when a greenish light appeared approximately forty feet in front of her. From that light, greenish-yellow pricks of lightning began to spark in the area, until something completely unexpected happened.

Out of the sparks, Hive soldiers began to take shape. There were Knights, Acolytes and a wave of Thralls to be seen. There was even an Ogre stomping around, its massive footsteps thundering upon the ground. And in the center of it all was a single Wizard. This Wizard was different, however. Instead of a normal appearance, this one had long horns growing from the top of its head, and it had bright blue eyes that shone on whoever its gaze locked onto. And right now, that gaze was locked onto her.

It screamed a ghastly sounds, and the Ogre turned to face her, roaring as it did so. Scorch was ill-prepared for it, but the Ogre swung one fist as she sped by and managed to flip her sparrow. She was thrown free, and felt the weightless sensation of being high in the air. Her racing helmet had been knocked off during the impact, and she could see everything with her normal field of view, the entire scene or Hive clamoring to look at her in the air. Then she began to fall, and landed with a loud thud on the powdery snow.

Her eyes stung from the cold, the ice making painful biting sensations on her face. But she looked around anyway, attempting to remain alert in the face of danger. She pushed herself onto one knee, and instinctively reached around for the Last Word but remembered that she'd left it in her weapons locker. Cursing, she watched as the Acolytes made their way over to her while she knelt on the ground.

A throwing knife came out of nowhere and landed directly between the eyes of the nearest Hive. The Acolyte's eyes lost their green glow that signified life, and it began to fall to the ground. Sprinting up to it, Matt reached forward as it fell, and pulled the knife from its head.

"Run!" he yelled, and he began to backtrack away from the band of Hive. She stood defiantly, saying, "We're Guardians! We don't run!" The rest of the Heroes and Seekers had come as well, but stood back aways, throwing rocks that they could find on the ground.

He gave her a gesture at his body. "Does it look like any of us prepared for a fight? I'm wearing a hoodie and jeans! If you want to get torn apart like a tin-can, that's your call, but we're gonna get slaughtered unless we have our gear!" He began to backtrack again, only pausing to throw another knife, this one at a Knight that had been getting too close to Scorch.

Much as she hated to admit it, he had a point. Standing up, she began to sprint away from the Hive and towards their comrades, Matt at her side. The Wizard gave another scream, but before any of her minions could react, the sound of bullets peppering the snow became prominent, and it looked around to see the task force aircrafts firing machine gun rounds at them. With a hiss, it reluctantly drew its arms over its head, and began to teleport away. The rest of the Hive were cut down, but the Wizard had escaped.

The total time of the attack had been just under a minute. It left them all with more questions that answers.

Eager jabbed at the Hive bodies before them and loudly asked, "Anyone want to tell me what the hell that was?"

Dawn crossed her arms. "I'm not sure, but all Guardians were to report to the tower. I'm sure that we're all about to find out just what's going on, and why it's relevant to us."

* * *

Author's Note: I've decided to make these chapters shorter than the ones I've been writing for the other stories, so that I'm able to update more often! Hope this fits everyone's taste!


	3. Under Pressure

Coming back from the hangar, Matt noticed that the courtyard was chalk-full of Guardians. He'd never seen so many of them crammed into one place before, bustling around and nervously chatting amongst themselves, all of them equally curious as to what was going on. Ash and Aria followed closely behind him, as did the Seekers. They all wore the clothing they'd worn at the race, which meant Scorch was walking around while still dressed in her racing garb. She looked quite out of place, compared to how everyone else looked; some Guardians were in attire similar to their own, but others were dressed in full combat gear, leading Matt to question exactly where had many Guardians been called? Even from missions out on Venus, or Mars? This had to be pretty serious if that were the case.

From the left came the Speaker, walking up the stairs to the small balcony that stood behind Xander, the bounty-master. Silence began to fall around the courtyard as the Speaker began to explain the gathering.

"Guardians, today we have learned of a grave threat to us all. I am almost hesitant to speak it aloud, for fear that it is true; but alas, this threat is all too real." He gave a small sigh, and then dropped his bombshell; "Crota is returning."

A collective gasp came from most of the Guardians in the Courtyard. Matt simply felt confused. He had no idea who this 'Crota' was, but evidently they weren't something to be trifled with. He looked at his companions to see Aria's mouth gaping in recognition, as well as Scorch and Eager who looked dumbfounded. Ash and Dawn, on the other hand, appeared to share his ignorance. He said nothing, sure that they would learn soon enough who Crota was.

One Guardian called out, "How do you know?" The Speaker looked to the right of the balcony where another Guardian was ascending the staircase on the opposite side. She seemed quite different from other Guardians, however. Her attire was completely made up of a depressingly black cloth with a kind of vest over her torso. Her skin appeared to be completely devoid of pigment and color, giving her the appearance of a gaunt corpse.

"I am Eris Morn. I journeyed into the realm of Crota years ago with a team of strong Guardians, unmatched by any others." In spite of her appearance, she spoke with a strong and clear voice; she could be heard all around the courtyard as though she were right next to you. "We were brave, but foolish. One by one, we were struck down until only I was left. For years, I huddled in the squalor, drawing strength from… unmentionable sources in order to survive." Almost instinctually, she reached her hand up to her forehead, where a bandana covered her eyes.

"I learned of his plan to return to our realm, and I made haste to help end it. I crawled out of the depths with nothing but revenge on my mind, and you all are going to help me." She glared at the rest of the Guardians with a look of fury so strong, Matt felt like holes were being bored into his skull.

Cayde, who was standing near Xander below the Speaker and Eris, coughed loudly. "Well Eris, that uh, that was certainly quite the… dramatic speech." He looked around at the crowd of Guardians before him. "But she is right. If Crota is returning, it could mean all-out war against the Hive. He commands many of their forces, being a Prince-God of theirs. And the last time he was here in our realm… well, there were a lot of good people that ended up not-alive." He paused to let that sink in, and then resumed his briefing.

"As was shown earlier this evening, his forces are already starting to move in. His apprentice, Omnigul, reared her ugly head here on Earth just a few hours ago. Whatever she's doing out int he cosmodrome, it's not good. We need every single Guardian on high alert for this, no games. Whatever you hear, see, or feel out there, I don't care if you just get the goosebumps while walking in the cold, check it out. We need to know her whereabouts, and we need them fast." He gave one last look around the crowd before waving his hand and saying, "Dismissed."

Guardians began to disperse from the square, each hurriedly running off with an apparent aura around them; their motivation was blatantly obvious. Matt was about to follow suit when he heard Cayde speak up; "Matt! Scorch!" They both looked over to where the Hunter Vanguard was beckoning them to come. With looks of confusion, they obeyed, and soon both stood in front of the eccentric Exo.

He stood with his hands on his belt, too lazy to put them in his pockets. "I want both your teams to meet with the Vanguards in about ten minutes. That alright with you?" They nodded, although still unsure of what Cayde was getting at. The Hunter nodded in acceptance, and began to walk away. It surprised Matt that Cayde wasn't sporting his usual quips to each and every word coming out of a person's mouth. Maybe this issue was a bigger one than he'd even escalated it to be in his mind.

-X-

The Heroes and Seekers stood at opposite sides of the table, waiting on the Vanguards to tell them why they'd been called. With a tired sigh, Zavala lifted his head.

"I'm sure that you're all wondering why you're here." Scorch raised an eyebrow. "With respect, I thought we were here because you summoned us?"

The Titan shook his head. "No, not us. _She_ summoned you. Or more accurately, asked for the best Guardians we had on hand." Waving his hand in the direction behind the long table, both teams turned to see Eris slinking from the shadows.

"I remember you," stated Aria, "from when I studied to be a Guardian. You and the rest of your team weren't taken seriously, but you ended up chasing the trail of one of the most legendary enemies we've faced before." Eris, usually so empty of emotion, felt a small smirk tug at the ends of her mouth. "So, we weren't completely forgotten."

She reverted back to her melancholy expression, and walked to the far end of the table, splitting even between the two teams of Guardians. "As I said, I'm here for revenge. But even my desire for vengeance doesn't blind me to the dangers presenting themselves to the city; and so you're all going to help me stop them."

Matt nodded immediately. This was his job, to be ready at a moment's notice to defend the Traveler. "Where do we start?"

Cayde held up his hands. "Slow down there, trigger-happy. You haven't even heard what she has to say yet." Eris shot him a look, but did not say anything. "As Cayde has implied, the tasks ahead are dangerous, filled with peril. All of you will be necessary for this to succeed."

This time, everyone waited patiently for her to explain. She held a small green orb with a single shard of… something, swirling inside. She used her hands to rotate it while she spoke in a monotonous tone; "Crota has grown stronger over the years, strong enough to attempt an escape from his realm of isolation; though he still requires several events before he can manifest here."

She paced around the room as she gave exposition, "Firstly, his true form may be banished, but a shard of his soul resides in this reality, encased in a Hive crystal. It is in this crystal that his tie to this realm is anchored; it must be destroyed. Omnigul will attempt to bring him through to our world, but without the crystal… I won't say it'd be impossible, but it would make things much harder for her."

Now, she held up the orb she had in her hands. "Secondly, Omnigul will need this. She will attempt to seek it out here on Earth, for she cannot succeed without it."

Eager raised a metallic eyebrow questioningly. "Well, what the hell is it?"

She shot him another one of her menacing looks at his question. "Never you mind what it is, all you need to know is that Omnigul must not be permitted to get her hands on it! Understood?" Holding his hands up to mime surrender, Eager looked quite mollified.

Eris gave a curt nod. "Good. Now this leads us to the last topic of interest; mission assignments. One team must pursue Omnigul, and the other must venture to the moon…" Eris shook slightly, her memories of what had occurred there obviously bothering her, "… and destroy the crystal."

Ash gave an involuntary shudder at the mention of the moon. She, Aria, and Matt had taken very few trips there; after the first one with several near-death experiences, she'd felt that she'd experienced all that the moon had to offer, and she wasn't interested. Falling into the Hellmouth still stood near the top of Ash's worst fears, and she wasn't eager to make another visit.

"Eris, we'd be more than glad to kill Omnigul for you." Ash breathed a sigh of relief, as the voice belonged to Matt. Looking after his team as always. Or maybe he just felt it was the more dangerous mission, and was trying to spare the Seekers any danger-

"With respect, Matt… I think that we should take that one." The Heroes stared at Scorch incredulously as she voiced her opinion. She shrank a little bit at their reaction, but her eyes held that fierce look of determination that she was known for.

"What makes you say that?" asked Matt, his brow furrowed. Scorch crossed her arms. "I just think that we're up to the challenge. I know you're volunteering for the mission to keep us out of danger, you've done it several times over the last year." So Scorch had caught on to that. Ash looked to Matt, watching the thoughts behind his eyes as he tried to find the words to say what he wanted to.

"It's not a matter of danger, it's simply a matter of experience here. We've been Guardians a while longer than you, and we've dealt with troublesome Wizards before, like the Siphon Witches. We know how to handle ourselves is all." Ash nodded at the logical way he'd handled it.

"With respect, it didn't seem like you three knew how to handle yourselves in the Vault of glass."

The room fell dead silent.

Ash's eyes darted from Matt to the Scorch, while her mouth hung slightly open in shock. It seemed like nobody in the room was even breathing, lest they set off a bomb. Eager seemed to be following Ash's example, and seemed nonplussed that Scorch had made such a provocative statement. Dawn, however, seemed to nod slightly in agreement with Scorch. Go figure, she'd practically been loyal to Scorch since her creation.

Matt's eyes narrowed after his initial surprise, and his voice seemed slightly less warm now. "I already acknowledged that we'd been out of our league when you rescued us Scorch. But I hardly see how that's relevant right now. The issue at hand is that your team is just a bit inexperienced to go chasing down powerful minions of the Darkness by yourself."

Eager piped up slightly, "Well, to be fair, I've been a city task force enforcer for longer than you've been a Guardian, so…" He quieted again from the look Matt gave him. "I understand that you're somewhat experienced Eager, but with domestic issues for the most part; problems in the city. When it comes to being a Guardian team, you've all had about eight months tops to get acquainted, while Ash, Aria and I have had years." Aria nodded firmly, which was surprisingly rebellious of her compared to her usual mild-mannered behavior. Apparently, she was more defensive of him and Ash than she let on.

The Vanguards watched all this with wide-eyes, never suspecting that something like this would happen. Scorch tried again to fight her case.

"With respect-" she began, but she was quickly interrupted by Matt.

"You know, you keep saying 'with respect', but I'm yet to actually hear it in your voice." Her lips pursed, and her jaw clenched in response to Matt's boldness. Both Matt and Scorch leered at each other from alternate sides of the table, daring the other to make a remark.

"Enough." Eris's voice cut through their adrenaline-charged stupors, and forced them to listen. "I can see that you two cannot decide this amongst yourselves."

"You." She pointed at Matt and the Heroes. "You three will find the crystal, and shatter it. Bring me a shard so that I can see for my own eyes that Crota's anchor is broken." She pointed her hand the other way, at the Seekers. "You three will search for Omnigul, and put an end to her meddling."

Matt raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Ash looked at him, expecting him to object, but he simply stood there. She wondered why.

Scorch smiled slightly. "Thank you ma'am, we won't let you down."

Eris shook her head. "I don't give you this mission out of a sense of justice; it simply needs to be done. If you feel you are up to the task, you are more than welcome to try; but do not underestimate her craftiness, and do not dare to think of this all as a game of courage. Am I understood?" She glared at Scorch until the young Hunter mumbled an agreement under her duress. Then she nodded.

"In that case, I suggest you all retire to your rooms. Tomorrow, we begin our hunts."

-X-

Matt lay in bed, mulling over what had just happened. He'd never known Scorch to get so aggressive like that- well, except for when she was racing. All bets were off then. But during a briefing, while the Vanguards were there? Not to mention she'd pulled that fit in front of everyone else too, challenging his authority.

That thought struck him; what authority? Did he really wield any? He'd been appointed as leader of the Heroes, not by an actual feat, but because Ash and Aria had made him the de-facto commander of their first mission together. Maybe he _was_ getting a little overbearing when he had no right to be. After all, Scorch was right; she and the Seekers had rescued them from the Vault of Glass. But even so, she was showing a lack of respect for him, and he needed to think about how to handle that one. He sighed outwardly.

A knock sounded on his door. He raised his head up to see it opening slowly, Ash on the other side.

"Mind if I come in?" she asked. He shook his head, and patted the bed next to him. She often had nightmares, they both did; having company did wonders to help someone through the night.

Complying with his gesture, she slid under the covers next to him. He wrapped one arm around her, and pulled her closer. "What was it tonight?"

"The Hellmouth," she whispered quietly. He should have expected that, especially after all that talk about the moon and their new mission. "I was dreaming of hanging over it again, but this time, you and Aria weren't there… you weren't there to help me when I fell." Her body shook slightly in his hold. "I just fell, and God… I heard their screams, and- and I just felt like the worst things imaginable were going on down there."

Matt rubbed her shoulder affectionately to comfort her. The best course of action was to just listen and sympathize, and he could do both of those well; he'd had similar dreams concerning the Black Garden, the Vault, and many others. The Hellmouth had been especially bad for Ash, and he completely understood how it had affected her. She closed her eyes, and snuggled closer to him with her back to his chest; she pulled his hand down to her navel as she held it, smiling from the touch of his fingers on her skin.

Matt remarked at how many people assumed Exo's felt cold- mostly because of their metal composition- but they actually felt quite warm. Ash radiated heat just like a normal human, and felt quite comfortable. He was more than willing to share a blanket with her as they often did when she came in in the middle of the night.

Turning his head to the ceiling, Matt continued to ponder the events of the night as Ash attempted to sleep. He had no idea how to manage it; give him a Fallen Captain anyway, or a Vex Minotaur- but trying to solve an argument with a rebellious teen wasn't in his cards.

Check that- she wasn't a teen. Since they'd been stuck for nearly five years in real-time in the Vault, she was only three or so years younger than he was; he needed to stop treating her as though she was so much younger, but he couldn't help thinking of her as that same girl that he and Aria had rescued from the rubble of the Urban district.

Ash turned her head back to the point where Matt could see the glow from her electric blue eyes, now open. "What's wrong? You're tense." Matt kept his head still, staring at the ceiling. She waited patiently next to him for him to speak.

"I just don't know how to react to the whole thing." He turned slightly to look at her where she. "About Scorch. I don't know why she lashed out so much today, and honestly- it felt a bit rude. What do you think?"

Ash was silent for a moment, thinking it over. When she finally spoke, she did it with an air of caution; "I'm not sure what to think. I mean, sure, she's never done anything like that before- but can you blame her now?"

Matt jerked his head slightly. "What do you mean?"

Ash took a deep breath. "Well, she does have a point- you do tend to take the more dangerous missions before she has a chance to prove herself. It's happened several times since we got back from the Vault, and I'm a bit surprised she hasn't brought it up sooner. That being said, she was indeed being very… mouthy about it. It could have been handled better."

He spun that line of thinking around in his head, mulling it over. Maybe she was right, maybe he just needed to stop trying to protect everyone. It was just difficult, with…

He shook his head, clearing those thoughts away, and smiled at Ash warmly. "Who would have thought that the tough ol' Titan would be the voice of reason here?"

She reciprocated his smile, and closed her eyes again. "I guess your temperament is rubbing off on me more than I thought. I'll have to work on my gruffness some more."

They both laid in the silence for a few moments before Ash's eyes opened wide once more.

"Did you just call me old?"

-X-

Scorch leaned against the railing of the tower courtyard, her arms crossed in front of her to proved support for her torso. She looked out at the Traveler, floating high above the city lights in the distance. She remembered all the days of looking up at it, and staring at it through a window before falling asleep.

Spectre hovered up next to her. "You alright?" She gave a large exhale, refraining from looking at him.

"I know I shouldn't have said those things. It wasn't right, I just… I just wanted to get it off my chest, and finally have a chance to do something. Ever since we rescued them from he Vault, it's been one menial task after another. 'Clear out this Fallen coven', and 'take care of that rouge Knight on the city borders'."

She now turned her head to stare at him, her arms moving emphatically in the air to emphasize her point. "I mean, I'm a child of light, right? The one meant to bring about the Balance, if we ever find out what that is. I just want to be treated as such. I just want a bit more respect for us, the Seekers I mean."

Spectre bobbed in the air. "I know what you mean. But all the same… funny, I remember how biased I used to be. I still am to a degree, but… I can see their side of the coin. Maybe you just need to be a bit more patient, hmm?" He faced her again, and she turned away; not out of reluctance, but out of embarrassment, because she knew he was right to a point.

"Scorch?" The Hunter spun around at the sound of a familiar feminine voice, one that sounded synthesized like Spectre's. "Hey, Seraph. What are you doing out so late?"

The little Ghost floated a few feet away, obviously feeling a bit awkward for intruding. "I was looking for you, actually. Could we talk?"

Scorch had a good idea that she was in for a lecture, but she nodded anyway. "Alright. What's on your mind?"

Seraph flew a little closer, trying to break the ice. "Well, I just noticed that today, you were a bit, um…"

"Harsh?" she provided, rolling her eyes that she was having to provide the speech for the Ghost's own chiding. Seraph however, just shook herself in a 'no' motion.

"That's not… look, that doesn't matter. I'm not here to find the reason behind your actions… I just wanted to explain the logic behind Matt's." Now this was new, and Scorch raised an eyebrow at the unexpected development.

Seraph began to emit a blue light, and a small box materialized. It was simple enough, just a small metal box for storage. Scorch caught it as it appeared, and held it in her hands. "What is this?"

The Ghost looked at her expectantly. "Open it." Obediently, she did as Seraph asked. Inside was nothing but pictures, scattered around the bottom of it. They were in reasonably good condition, but something about them seemed… old. The backgrounds didn't match any kind of thing she'd seen in her years here in the city, and she couldn't recognize where they'd been taken. They were of many things, places, a sunset, random people, but several particular individuals seemed to stand out, there seemed to have more pictures with them than the others. She saw a boy and a girl, young and mischievous looking. She saw an older girl and guy laughing together, and then saw the same girl hugging-

"Is that… Matt?" she whispered curiously. Gingerly, she picked up the photo and held it between her thumb and forefinger, analyzing it. He certainly looked like Matt, albeit a younger incarnation by several years; he had brown hair and green eyes to match, and his face shone with the familiar enthusiasm that was so often seen in Matt.

Seraph nodded. "Matt gave this box for me to hold onto. He probably thought I'd get rid of it eventually, but I've held onto it for him. Just in case." Scorch marveled at the history these photographs told.

"See, Matt is different from other Guardians. Unlike most of them, he was conscripted, not recruited. Most people had thought that the days of reviving individuals who had died in the past long ago were over; it had been nearly ten years since the last revival of a Golden-Age Guardian, and light tends to deteriorate when left out for years, exposed to the Darkness. But I'd had this feeling, this mindset that I was going to be the next Ghost to do it."

She laughed. "Ever since the day I revived him, Matt has taken care of me as my Guardian, and I have watched over him as his Ghost. But I was wrong- he wasn't a human from the Golden-Age; he was from _before_ the Golden-Age, from the days when the Traveler had first been discovered."

Scorch made a small 'o' shape with her mouth; she'd never known that about him. Seraph continued to explain, "He'd lead a decent life, despite some bumps. He'd had friends, family." Seraph gestured at the young boy and girl. "Those two were his twin siblings. He's never even told me their names, he talks about his past so little." They were looking up at Matt as the photo had been taken, admiring their big brother.

Seraph hovered over the one with the boy and girl who looked to be Matt's age at the time. "That's Lucas and Sara. They were his best friends. Sara, perhaps… was something more." The final photo she showed Scorch was the one of Matt and Sara together, hugging as the picture was taken.

"She died. A genetic disease struck her down in her youth, and caused her to wither away slowly. Matt stuck with her until the end. He told me she died in his arms." The Ghost's voice sounded sad as she spoke these last few lines of exposition.

Scorch's hand shook slightly. "Why did you show me this?" Seraph was silent for a moment.

"I showed you this because I want you to understand; Matt had a _life_. He didn't choose this one, it was simply a second chance for him after he was yanked so suddenly from his past, away from his family and friends, from all that he cared about. He doesn't even know what happened to them; the only person he has closure about is with Sara, and it's because she died next to him." She looked Scorch in the eyes.

"I just want you to understand why you see him as overbearing; it's because he's protective of his friends and family to no end. He almost killed himself in order to keep Aria and Ash out of the Black Garden, he _did_ kill himself during the Battle for the Traveler, and he's saved their lives more than one can count. He never wants to have to go through the pain of losing a friend again, and that includes you." With that, Seraph stored the box and photos once more, and hovered away, obviously finished with her conversation.

Scorch turned back to the railing again. Spectre watched her, but said nothing. Equally, she kept the silence; she simply stared out at the Traveler again, pondering over what Seraph had revealed to her.


	4. Diverging Paths

The Heroes sat in silence as the blue lights of warp-space wrap around them. Ash looked ahead to the viewport, her face blank as she remained in her pilot's chair. Aria's eyes were pointed downward, watching her own hands fidget with one another, constantly locking fingers and unlocking.

Matt was situated next to Ash as usual, in the co-pilot's chair; though he usually didn't have anything to do. It was more or less just a pattern that they had fallen into.

On this particular trip however, he was watching Ash carefully. He knew that she had provided good points for Scorch and her argument to hunting Omnigul; but that didn't mean that she was suddenly okay with going to the Hellmouth. Every time they came to the moon, Ash would always get stonily silent, and became very short with everyone. He knew that she would push through it though, and try to show everyone exactly how tough she was. It wasn't necessary, but that was just a part of her Titan mindset; whatever bothers you, smash it to bits. And if that doesn't work, smash it some more.

He reached his hand over to hers, and held it in his grasp. She didn't look over at him, but did jump slightly at the touch before realizing it was Matt. He rubbed his thumb on the back of her hand affectionately. He could see a small upward tug at the corner of her mouth, the ghost of a smirk. Her hand squeezed his to let him know she acknowledged his act, the only direct sign he was gonna get that she appreciated the gesture.

She had no way of knowing of course, what Matt had been thinking about for the last few months. They were coming up on three years together now, and Matt had been wondering how much longer he wanted to wait before asking if she wanted to make things a bit more… permanent.

Of course, marriage was obviously a known concept in the city, but a bit more foreign for inhabitants of the tower; Guardians rarely had families of their own. Not because they didn't want to, but because there usually just wasn't any time for it, at least, not while they were fighting for humanity's survival 24/7; no time for settling down, no time to raise kids, none of that. Some Guardians did have families anyway, but they usually left the raising of children and other parental duties to their spouse, as they were always deployed. It was a pretty sad thought to think that any Guardian would be more of a visitor to their spouse and kids than an actual member of their family.

Not to mention that they weren't even both human; Ash was an Exo, and they usually didn't have romantic relationships to begin with, much less with people outside of their own species, or whatever someone wanted to classify an Exo as. Their relationship was at the very least an oddity, and at the worst, it was unheard of. A human and Exo? Together? People would be shocked, would laugh. The only reasons that they rarely got any flak around the tower were because hardly anyone knew about it; most just assumed that they were nothing more than best friends. The second was due to their status; nobody wanted to disrespect the legendary Guardians that had saved the Traveler, and more importantly, ones that could kick your ass at any time.

The likely-negative reaction to an announcement of a marriage between them wouldn't bother him, he didn't care what other people thought; but he didn't know about Ash. She'd already been the subject of contempt before when people had first found out about her past as the Warrior, and she hadn't handled it well. He knew that she would more than likely accept a proposal in marriage, but could he do that knowing that she might not be able to cope with the potential consequences afterwards?

Ah, what did he know about consequences? They'd been missing for five years, maybe things around the city had become more accepting. If his past in London was any indication, then they had no chance, but hopefully the people of the city had changed from their ancestor's tendencies in discrimination.

He'd discussed it with Aria as well a few weeks back, and she seemed to think it was a good idea. Actually, she'd been a bit more emphatic than that, he could remember quite clearly;

 _Aria shook Matt violently, each hand of hers holding a shoulder. "For Traveler's sake, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! It's almost been three years, and you're only JUST NOW thinking of this?!" Perhaps he would explain his reasoning when his brain stopped bouncing around his skull._

He was glad that she was rooting for their happiness, but he just wasn't sure that she was considering all of the possible problems that could arise from-

"Ten seconds to Luna. I'll be the Ghost with you guys for this mission." Whip's synthetic voice jolted Matt back into reality, and he ceased to zone-out. Ash looked at him curiously. "You alright?" He nodded, and gave her a smile. "As good as I'll ever be."

In an instant, the warp-space around them transitioned back to normal space, and ahead of them was the moon, its pearly white surface reflecting the light of the sun. Ash moved her hands to the controls, and began to plot a course downward to land.

-X-

Scorch sat in the tree near the gunsmith in the courtyard, twirling the Last Word around her finger in a bored manner. She was awaiting word on Omnigul's whereabouts. The wizard was sure to come here at some point, looking for Eris Morn's strange orb. It was just a matter of time before some scout spotted her, and the Seekers would jump into action.

"I didn't realize that the fearless hunter of Hive apprentices spent her spare time hanging around in trees." The sarcastic tone of Eager's voice below broke Scorch out of her day-dream like state, and she smirked. She leaned over the edge to look at where he stood, nearly directly below her. "What does it matter to you?"

Eager shrugged his shoulders. "I just want to talk. Is that a crime?" Sighing, she swung her legs over the particular branch she was perched upon, and let herself fall to the ground.

"Alright, you've got my attention." Eager's hand reached around to the nape of his neck, and he held it there in the universal gesture for 'awkward'. "Look, about last night-"

Scorch interrupted him. "I know, I know. I went too far, I understand that. Seraph came and lectured me already."

But Eager was shaking his head. "No, I don't- I mean, you DID go too far, but- I didn't come here to chastise you." Scorch cocked her head to one side, awaiting his explanation.

"See, when we first became a team- I did the same thing. I wasn't sure you could handle it, and I wasn't too thrilled, if you remember, to be placed in the care of a new Guardian, especially one who didn't even seem all that keen to be one." He held his hand up before she could cut him off out of indignation. "But I was wrong. You may have been new, but I should have had more faith in you when we first became a team. Which is why I'm saying now… I support you."

Her mouth opened slightly. "What?"

He shrugged. "I support you. Of course, you do need to cool it a bit with Matt, I can't imagine he was too excited about how you fought with him- but I do support your argument, and I'm here to back you up if it comes up again. People need to start having more faith in you if you're going to reach your full potential."

He smiled, his synthetic green eyes glowing with sincerity. She smiled back, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks Eager. I needed that."

As she released his shoulder, Dawn came jogging up to them. "Hey, we've got some news. Vanguards want to see us." Scorch grinned in anticipation. This was the news she'd been waiting for.

They walked into the Hall of Guardians to see the Vanguards discussing with three Guardians while Eris listened intently. Cayde turned at the sound of their footsteps approaching.

"Ah, there you are. We were just talking with these three about a possible scuffle they had with Omnigul." Scorch snapped her attention to the leader, a Titan. "Are you sure?"

The Titan reached her hand up, and scratched at a bit of dirt on her visor. "Well, ugly wizard with horns like the devil himself, surrounded by a squad of Hive at all times, and screeches like nails on a chalkboard? Yeah, I'd say we're pretty sure."

Scorch smirked at the sarcasm. "Alright, where did you see her?"

One of the three, a Warlock cradling an injured arm he'd likely sustained from their skirmish, piped up, "Over at the communications tower, near the Warmind's vault."

At this, Scorch raised an eyebrow curiously. "The Warmind?"

Zavala cleared his throat. "I forgot that not everyone knows of the Warmind; it's a rare secret we keep amongst the Guardians of the tower." Scorch faced him, her wonder getting the best of her.

"A long time ago during the Golden Age, massive AI constructs were built to defend us. They were called Warminds, programmed with algorithms beyond our comprehension, all for the purpose of our survival. During the collapse, all were destroyed but one; Rasputin."

"Rasputin," repeated Scorch, testing the word out in her mouth. Zavala nodded. "He has access to all of the old weapons stations on various planets, going so far as Mars. At this point, he's practically our first line of defense if we were to come under attack."

"Why would you keep this from the city?" asked Scorch. Cayde gave a small _ahem_ uncomfortably. "Well, the Warmind has a tendency to be… hostile towards people he doesn't know, including Guardians. We may all be human, but as far as he's concerned, we're just kids he's looking out for; not the original people who built him, and he's more than willing to fight for his independence."

"Just one troublesome AI?" snorted Dawn. Ikora gave her a stern look. "One troublesome AI with the firepower of more than 3 planets, and the capability to blow us all up before you could say 'Traveler'".

Dawn shut up.

"All of this talk, and yet no progress has been made." Eris's signature drawl drew everyone's attention to her. "All of you, ask yourselves… why would she be near the Warmind's sanctuary in the first place?

A few seconds passed by before Cayde face-palmed, muttering, " _Ah, crap."_

"What's wrong?" inquired Eager. Cayde pointed out the door emphatically. "Go! If she attacks the Warmind, that takes out our best defense against an attack like the one Crota would try! You can't let her get to him!"

Without another word, the Seekers turned and sprinted out the door. They now had an addition to their objective; keep Omnigul from getting to the Warmind. Cayde was right; the results would be disastrous if the AI was put out of commission.

The Seekers had been gone for nearly a minute before the Warlock spoke again, "Hey, uh, can I head to the infirmary or something?"

-X-

Aria stepped over the body of an Acolyte that lay dead upon the floor. The Heroes stood in the Temple of Crota, making sure that they'd cleared the room of all hostiles.

"You know," commented Matt, "last time we were in this temple, we were trying to get _out_ , not _in_." Aria called over to him without turning, her eyes looking down the sights of her rifle; "I'm not too keen on the reversal of our direction myself."

Ash walked over to a hole in the floor that led deeper into the Hive's fortress, and let herself drop over the edge. Matt and Aria followed suit a moment later.

Now on point, the Titan held out her hand for Whip to materialize. "Whip, can you mark a path for that crystal?"

The Ghost vibrated slightly, processing the information that he had gathered from the World's Grave years ago. "There is an area which appears to be one of sacred origin; but it's deep into their tunnels. I'm not sure that it'll be safe for any of us-"

Aria waved at Whip to grab his attention. "Not sure that you've noticed in the years you've been Ash's Guardian; but almost nothing we do is safe, I doubt that this is gonna be too far from our normal routine." Though Ash still looked visibly uncomfortable, she had to admit that the Awoken girl had a point. Whip said nothing, obviously choosing to concede as well.

"It's uh… it's this way." He illuminated a shadowy path to their left, and they began to trek deeper into the Hellmouth once more. Instantly, all light disappeared. Nobody said anything, but every one of them knew how unsettling their situation was.

Their path seemed to take hours; constantly on edge in the dark, and attempting to check every corner of the subterranean pathway for monsters caused them to lose their sense of time. Several times, Aria had to fight the urge to ask the Ghost if he knew where he was going; the passage they seemed to be following was filled with a dank, nauseating smell, though all Hive tended to give off that scent. There was no light to go off of, save for the one given by Whip. Thankfully, she kept her silence, because the passage began to brighten up as they reached an end to it.

"Where are we?" Matt asked, all three of them looking around at their new surroundings. Small lanterns were fixed to the rocky walls, filled with green fire. They gave off a ghastly appearance, but fortunately illuminated the rest of their path. Ahead of them was some sort of entrance to a shrine, built with architectural precision. Before them were piles of bones, victims that had fallen prey to the hive. They belonged to several species, but upon noticing a prominent human skull, Aria looked away with a hard swallow.

"This is the entrance to the Chamber of Night. This is the most prominent shrine to Crota in the upper layer of the Hellmouth. It's only logical assume that Eris's so-called 'soul crystal' of Crota would be here." Whip flew forward a bit more, suddenly intrigued. "I can sense… disturbances. In the natural balance of Light and Dark. I mean, the Hellmouth is already pretty Dark, but… this is a whole new level. Whatever Eris was talking about, it's definitely in there."

"Well then," said Ash with a burst of courage that she didn't really feel, "what are we waiting for?" She unslung her rifle, and began to walk forward. Aria held her hand out and stopped her from moving ahead, earning a provoked look from the Exo.

"What are you stopping me for? I can handle this!" she told the Awoken girl indignantly. Aria said nothing, but pointed to Ash's rifle. The Titan looked down at where she was gesturing.

"You left the safety on." Aria began to move ahead as Ash had done while Ash quickly corrected her mistake. Apparently, her mind was more addled from fear than she realized. Matt waved his hand in front of her to get her attention. "You alright?"

She nodded, not willing to say anything and let her voice betray her true feelings. She had no doubt that Matt wasn't fooled for a moment, but he didn't stop her regardless. With him covering their exit, she followed after Aria.

The entire entryway was filled with platforms, and complex gem-like structures that split the rooms into two passages for no particular reason. Chains hung from the ceiling, with meathooks adorning the ends of each one. Ash kept her eyes away from them, unwilling to let her imagination wander to the images that it began conjuring up- notably of Matt and Aria.

A final set of stairs signified the end of the entrance to the shrine; but what lay inside couldn't be more different than what she had expected. The massive room was dim, lit only by a ghostly green glow in the center of the room. Before she inspected that, she noticed that all of the walls were rock, making this more of a cave than a shrine. A single primitive bridge had been constructed to the center of the room, while a small pond of murky water was situated on the left. On the right was what looked to be an area that had fallen victim to a rock-slide.

She gasped in awe when she realized that a massive skeleton of some serpentine fashion stretched from the right of the room, up to the left and into the wall, hiding the rest of the bones. It truly would have had to have been enormous to leave behind such a remnant.

In the center of the room was a collection of large boulders that formed a circle; within that circle were four Wizards, each of which had an emblem underneath them. The emblems were the source of the green light, burning with the signature green-fire of the Hive. They seemed to be circular in shape, and were criss-crossed with Hive runes and writing. Ash supposed that the Wizards were drawing their power from them to infuse it into-

That's when Aria hit her on the shoulder, and pointed to the center of the Wizards. "Look." There stood an enormous crystal, half embedded in the lunar ground. It was hard to detect, but there was a spark of green light that emanated from within the crystal itself, pulsating like a grotesque heartbeat.

"I think that the Wizards are keeping the crystal alive, if you can call it that- at least until Omnigul gets what she wants to help them," remarked Aria. Ash concurred with her observation, and immediately began formulating a plan to destroy it quick and fast.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans. The sound of gunshots behind the two women forced them to turn around. Matt was walking backwards, firing round after round into his attackers. "Guys, we have trouble!" A swarm of Knights had decided to intervene, likely alerted to their presence by the bodies of those in the Temple they'd killed earlier. As Ash looked back towards the crystal, she saw that the Wizards had seen them finally, and began to screech in aggression.

"Well, you wanted the more dangerous mission Matt?" yelled Aria, shooting a particularly close Knight in the head multiple times before its armored plating broke and allowed entry of the bullets into its skull, "It looks like you got it!"

Ash groaned loudly. This was gonna suck.


	5. Omnigul's Ploy

_A/N: Sorry that this chapter has taken so long to write! The main reason is that I've just been busy with school and other life, but don't worry! I ended up splitting the chapter in half because it was too long, and the first half is this chapter! The second half makes up the majority of the next chapter, and so should be finished much sooner than this one! Remember to review and favorite!_

* * *

The Forgotten Shore. Though, if the activity that usually was present at it was any indication, it was anything but.

It was a popular place for Guardians to scout out; whether for an actual routine check, or for a simple session of relaxation. It was peaceful in its own way; the communications building was nearby, and from the top of it or one of the surrounding ships that lay beached upon the shoreline, you could look out at the ocean and watch as the waves crashed against the sand. It was almost therapeutic, seeing something so normal and blissfully untouched by the horrors of the war that had ravaged many a site like this one.

At the moment, however, Scorch was a bit preoccupied. She stood within the communications tower and looked around, trying to find any sign of the Hive squadron reported here, but seeing none. Some of the walls of the building were missing from years of exposure, and the wind howled through the structure, accompanying the sound of slapping waves nearby.

"Where could they have gone?" she heard Dawn mutter to her left. "I mean, it's not like a bunch of Hive could just hide." Scorch didn't want to say anything, but she was having a difficult time seeing where a powerful Wizard like Omnigul could be hidden within a building interior about the size of her old apartment.

She decided to radio it in. Holding her wrist interface up to the mouthpiece of her helmet, she contacted Zavala. "Sir, this is Scorch. The Seekers are here at the relay, but we're not seeing any kind of Hive activity here, not to mention the Warmind."

The voice she heard, however, was not of the Titan Vanguard. "The sanctum of Rasputin is further below in the tower, hidden by a trapdoor-stairwell."

As Eager began to rummage around on the floor, Scorch spoke back to the voice; "Eris?"

"Yes."

"Where's Zavala?"

Suddenly, his voice came onto the channel. "Scorch, Eris Morn has… requested that she be the one to assist you through your mission. I've entrusted her with my command comms." Scorch sighed exasperatedly. Not to say that she didn't trust the woman, but c'mon… if there was ever going to be a person who acted and looked more freaky than she did, Scorch did _not_ want to meet that person.

"We are wasting time! Listen carefully; can you hear that?" Scorch held her arm up to signal both Dawn and Eager to remain silent for a moment. After a few moment's pause, she did hear it amongst the other sounds of the water and wind; a musical piece, muffled and soft as though the source was covered up. It sounded like opera; she'd seen a show that some of the citizens of the city had put on when she was a kid.

"Yeah, I do. What is it?"

Eris responded excitedly, "That's Rasputin! If I know him, then that music means he's in trouble."

"Hey!" Scorch and Dawn snapped their heads to Eager where he crouched on the ground. He was lifting up a loose board of flooring that had revealed a staircase under it.

"Alright, we found our ticket in. We'll keep you all updated, just stay in touch." Scorch closed the channel, and walked over to descend the stairwell. It was dusty, and dark. Spectre appeared, and shone a light from his eye to illuminate where she stepped. She could hear Eager helping Dawn enter behind her, and continued on.

It wasn't a long time of walking around before she came to a peculiar entrance; it was a diamond shaped walkway, gray in color and built out of a durable metal unlike anything she'd seen before. The music was loudest here.

"Think this is it?" asked Eager rhetorically. Before she could snap back at him, a hiss of air blasted at them as the diamond split along a vertical seam in the middle. The two halves moved aside, acting as doors, and the music began to blare from within.

"I've never known him to welcome visitors." The eerie voice of Eris startled Scorch. She hadn't been aware that Eris had reopened the channel. "He must be in greater trouble than I thought."

Scorch shook her head as though trying to rid herself of the creepy woman. Biting her tongue, she forged ahead, followed closely by her fireteam members.

The inside was quite the contrast to the state of the building that it was built under was in; here, it was brightly lit and well kept. Stainless steel railings and floors were abundant here, and the entire place had a sterile feel to it; sterile of any kind of human presence. The opera music continued to play at loud volume.

"Be aware guys, we may be in a bit over our heads here," warned Scorch. With that, she took a right and began to walk through the facility.

Eager looked around at all the machinery and area of the place. "What is an all-powerful AI doing with this much spare room, anyway? I mean, he just hangs out down here by himself right?"

Dawn elbowed him. "Maybe he wasn't always alone. I'm sure that humans probably worked with him a lot before the collapse." Eager nodded, accepting this answer. They both acted so naturally that Scorch sometimes forgot that they were Exos, and not human. Or, at least not organic human. She was sure that Exos were had human souls, but were just stuck with artificial bodies. Whether that was a good or bad thing, she didn't-

"Contact!" yelled Eager, pointing in front of Scorch. She quickly redirected her attention to where his finger was indicating; indeed, a group of Thralls was barreling towards them.

"Clear 'em out!" ordered Scorch, raising her hand cannon to the onslaught of Hive zombies that were clawing their way towards them.

Bullets tore through the air as each Guardian found a target. The sound of gunfire was fitting to compliment the screams of the dying Thralls that fell to it. Unfortunately, they weren't the only Hive here. Greenish orbs began to appear, signifying the teleportation of more enemy forces.

"Go!" she yelled, and the Seekers sprinted forward and away from the orbs. She could hear the grunt of a Knight behind her, and knew she'd made the right call. "Up there!" She pointed at an opening which led into a large circular chamber. Passing the threshold of the doors, Dawn immediately turned and slammed her fist into the emergency lock. The massive barricades slid from the sides of the opening and slammed shut behind them.

All three stood there for a moment, gathering their bearings. It was only upon hearing an awful screech not unlike a dying animal that they all turned toward the source.

The room they were in had a viewing section of the entire chamber, and on the opposite side of the room was an ugly looking Wizard that Scorch wasn't going to forget any time soon.

Omnigul hissed at them, obviously baiting them into an attack. Scorch grinned. If this was a trap, she was about to set it off. Excellent.

"Seekers, let's take this Hive-bitch down!"

-X-

Matt slowly lifted his head up from the water.

Placing his arm in front of him, he used it as a prop to push himself up and look around. He was lying on his stomach in the pool of water to the left of the entrance. To his right was the cracked, and still smoking helmet of a Wizard half submerged in the water. Apparently, Ash and Aria had already taken at least one of the Wakers out.

Hearing a loud grunt, he faced forward and saw the Knight that had thrown him into the pond with a swipe with the back of its hand. It now raised its sword up to deliver the killing blow.

Acting quickly, he rolled out of the sword's descending arc. Not a moment too soon, as the heavy blade of the Knight cut into the water where he'd been just a second ago. He stood up with an alertness that did not reflect how groggy he truly felt. The creature prepared to take another swing, but its eyes were blown apart by Matt as he unloaded the Hawkmoon with startling accuracy into its face. It immediately reached its hand up to where it felt the pain, only for Matt to follow through with a slice of his Hunter's blade. The blow was fatal, and the Knight began to disintegrate, leaving nothing but a shell of chrysalid armor behind.

"Matt!" He turned every which way to find the source of the cry. He eventually found Aria keeping another Knight busy by zapping it with an electrical strike which sent current running throughout its body. It began to convulse until its bony frame could no longer tolerate the pain, and it sank to its knees. "You good?!"

He nodded shakily. "Where's Ash?" Aria used one hand to conjure a wall of void energy and deter the sword of another Knight, and used the other to gesture absentmindedly towards the crystal. "I'm a bit busy at the moment!"

Matt left Aria to her own devices as he turned and let a throwing knife fly from within the folds of his cloak. It traveled through the air gracefully before sticking into the middle of an Acolyte's forehead.

He craned his neck toward the sudden outburst of gunfire that came from somewhere over by the crystal. Peering over, he saw Ash trying to furiously impede a Knight's progress toward her. All too soon, however, her magazine ran out of ammo and she continued to hold down the trigger to the sound of empty clicking that came from having no ammunition.

"Ash!" She looked towards him just as he tossed over the Hawkmoon. She caught it easily enough, held it up to the Knight that was nearly upon her now, and calmly let loose several slugs into its abdomen. It reached a hand toward the entry points, and began to claw at itself in pain. Ash gave no mercy, and delivered a sharp but powerful kick to the now weakened armor. The Knight's torso snapped in half at the breaking point, and both torso and legs fell to the ground where they wriggled in agony for the next few seconds before disintegrating as per usual.

She held it out for him as he jogged over. "Thanks," she panted. He gave her a nod of acknowledgement before turning to Aria and calling over his shoulder. "Aria, if you can summon any light, a storm trance would be pretty helpful about now.

The Warlock gave no answer as she was still defending herself from another Knight, but he did see frays in the fabric of her robes begin to stand up in accordance with the static electricity that was now beginning to charge along her body. In another moment, her body exploded with blue energy, and she began to let lightning fly from her fingertips. The Knight had already been killed by the initial unleashing of so much energy, and she redirected her efforts towards the last three Wakers near Matt and Ash.

Matt pulled Ash out of the way as Aria glided forward, arcs of lighting traveling down her arms into her fingertips, where they manifested in surges of electricity that could be directed at opponents. A Waker turned to face her, and was immediately destroyed by the raw power of Aria's super. Another attempted to challenge her, and likewise was nearly melted to sludge.

The last Waker saw what had happened to the other two, and decided that it did not want to follow in their footsteps. It made a dash for the exit, but Ash grabbed her empty rifle, and threw it as hard as she could at the Wizard's retreating back.

In a fatal move of pride, the Waker turned back to screech indignantly at the Titan. That was the last thing it did before Aria caught up and sent as many volts of power as she could coursing through the Wizard's body. Overloaded with energy, the Waker simply ceased to exist, its body exploding with a poof of dust and rotting flesh.

The room fell eerily silent, now that it was devoid of the screams and howls of Hive soldiers. Aria turned towards Matt. "That wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be."

He was about to reply to her, something along the lines of not to jinx them, before a deep rumbling began to emit from behind them. All three turned to the greenish-glowing crystal which was now vibrating in its half-buried position. In a completely unexpected turn of events, the thing shot up into the air and began to increase in glow, as though charging up for something.

"Move!" he ordered, forcing Ash and Aria to follow him into cover behind an outcrop of rock. Green projectiles began to fire off from the crystal, obviously aimed at them.

"Dammit, Aria! Why'd you have to go and say something like that?!" scolded Ash, a spray of dust billowing out from near her head as one of the beams ricocheted off the rock they were taking cover behind.

"Oh, come off it! How was I supposed to know that the stupid rock was gonna start flying around and shooting freaking laser beams at us?!" Aria retorted, the anger in her helmeted voice all too apparent.

Matt exhaled softly, trying to think of a plan. "Alright, obviously we can't stay here forever."

"Oh, really? I had no idea."

Matt glared at Aria. "Look, soul crystal or not, the thing is still just made of rock. A good nova bomb should shatter that thing pretty easily."

"Hey! How come I've got to be the one to risk my neck here?" He smirked at her reaction.

"Well you were the one to jinx us. Only seems fitting that you fix the problem you created." She said nothing coherent, but he could hear her grumbling beside him at the injustice of the situation.

She pointed a finger accusingly at him. "You better create a distraction or something then. I'm not gonna let myself be a sitting duck as I get pelted with the green globs of whatever it keeps shooting at us."

Matt nodded, and turned to Ash. "You wanna help me out with this?"

"Oh, I would! But see, I appear to have misplaced my rifle." She gestured to herself, indicating she was unarmed. He'd forgotten that she'd chucked it at the last Waker earlier. "And I don't think it'd be a good idea to hop out of cover without a defense, right? I suppose you'll have to do this one on your own." He couldn't see her face, but he could tell from the silky tone she'd taken on that she had a wolf's grin plastered over her facial features.

"Oh, for…" he sighed in exasperation. "Alright, fuck it." He rolled out of cover and began to run towards the exit of the cavern. The crystal followed his movements and he could hear the sizzle of the energy beams it was firing leaving scorch marks in the dirt, or fizzling out in the pond he splashed through.

Aria held up her end of the deal, and launched her self up into the air. Spinning quickly, she let loose a purple bomb of void that traveled in a clean arc towards her target. The Nova Bomb impacted against the crystal, causing cracks to appear throughout its internal structure. The pressure became too much for the rock to handle, and it shattered into many pieces, each of them falling to the ground in a heap of smoking crystalline chunks. A green mist began to seep from the rubble, accompanied by the hiss of something akin to gas leaking from a canister. It eerily sounded like something groaning in pain, and Matt could only think that it was likely the sound of Crota's dying soul being released from the crystal.

Ash peeked over the edge of their cover. "Hey, look at that. It's dead."

Aria gave a huff of air. "Yeah, thanks for the info Captain Obvious." She walked over to the remains of the crystal, and pulled out a shard that still held a bit of green glow to it. "Here's the proof that Eris asked for." She tossed it over to Ash, the Titan catching it easily in her gauntleted fist.

"So, do we get to head back now?" Ash had directed the question to Matt, and he shrugged in response. "I guess so. I mean, unless you want to hang around on the moon some more?"

She shook her head. "No thanks, I think I'll pass on that offer."

Matt gestured for both of them to follow him. "Then let's go! Maybe the Seekers already finished off Omnigul, and we can get this show on the road."

-X-

 _This isn't good._

Scorch couldn't help but let that stray thought run through her mind as she dodged projectile after projectile.

 _Shut up, it's not like we don't know that. We can handle this._

 _No, the situation is already out of hand. This is past being able to handle._

She heard herself arguing with her inner voice, and hated to say it, but she agreed. Not that she'd admit that of course. She knew that they were going to set off a trap by Omnigul, but she hadn't realized just how crafty the Wizard was. Upon them entering, the exits had all locked and Omnigul had summoned quite a large amount of Hive; Knights, Acolytes, even a few Ogres, it was just a bit ridiculous. She probably would have made a joke about over-compensating if she wasn't evading gunfire constantly.

A blast of energy hit the ground just a few feet in front of her, and she stopped in her tracks, only to dodge in the other way as more gunfire tracked her movements. That had been too close, she'd actually felt the waves of heat roll off of her from the blast. She already had a scar across her left cheek, she didn't need any more.

"Scorch!" Her head snapped towards Dawn's voice. The Titan had popped a Ward of Dawn in the center of the room, protecting her and Eager who were standing inside.

She sprinted over to them, and rolled into the safety of the bubble. "Glad to see you could join us," said Eager, his arms up in a mock gesture of welcome. She ignored him.

"Dawn, how much longer can you keep this thing up?"

Dawn replied, her voice straining with concentration, "A bit, but it's not gonna hold out forever. Whatever you can do to help, do it soon!"

"What I don't get," muttered Eager, "is why Omnigul hasn't just destroyed the Warmind yet. I mean, isn't that what she came here for?" Indeed, the Wizard did not look to be interested in the console anymore. Instead, she slowly began to cackle loudly, her screeching voice echoing off the walls of the chamber.

Scorch slapped her visor with the palm of her hand. "It was a diversion! Eris said it herself, she wants that orb thing! What better way to ensure it's unprotected than by luring the people hunting you away?" She looked up to see Omnigul beginning to glow green, which meant she was about to teleport out of here at any second.

"Eager, take her down with a Nova Bomb or something! Now!"

Obeying his leader, Eager leapt up out of the bubble, and let a ball of energy began to grow from his hand. He pulled back his fist, and then lobbed it over at the Wizard. It curved in an arc, spiraling towards the Hive general until it detonated in a purple spray of void. They waited for the smoke to clear before assessing the situation.

"Did… did you just…?"

"Ah, shit."

" _DID YOU JUST MISS?"_

Eager shrugged, as though that would divert the blame. "Hey, it was a spur of the moment thing! I got a bit nervous, can you blame me?" Sure enough, there was no sign of the Wizard anywhere.

Scorch groaned internally. "We need to follow her, but I don't see us getting out of here any time soon with this many enemies surrounding us!" She began to mutter under her breath, "You'd think that a super with a nearly twenty foot radius would have at least hit _something_ …"

Dawn groaned. "Guys, do something quick!"

Scorch turned back to Eager. "Alright, I know I'm asking you to chain supers here, but can you harness your Radiance?" He thought for a moment, then nodded.

"Good, but be forewarned, this is gonna take a lot out of you. When I give the mark, I want you to start heating up the air. Hopefully, they're as flammable as they look." She gave one last look around before she hopped up and reached her hand to her back for the bow that had just materialized there. She drew it back, and let three arrows fly in different directions; each landed where she'd marked, and became an anchor, tethering enemies and keeping them from running, as well as weakening them.

"Now!" Scorch fell back into the bubble just as Eager jumped out of it, surrounded by flame. He began to spin, allowing heat to generate from his body and sending jets of flame swirling around the room. Wherever a tongue of fire licked a Hive solider, their papery skin ignited and caused them to turn to ash. Soon, there were flashes of instant ignitions occurring all around the room as Thralls and Acolytes alike popped like kernels of corn. Scorch and Dawn remained safe within the Ward of Dawn, watching as the Warlock laid waste to to everything around them.

Finally, he fell back into the bubble, and Dawn released it. All around them were piles of ash, littered around from Eager causing essentially a hurricane of fire. He was hunched over from exhaustion, the result of having chained his supers.

Scorch patted him on the back. "There you go, let it out. Looks like you redeemed yourself for your terrible aim earlier." He snapped his gaze to hers, narrowing his eyes at her teasing remark.

"I hate to break the two of you up here," called Dawn, "but don't we have a Wizard to hunt?" Both Eager and Scorch looked over to where she'd moved, next to the exit. She waved her arm at them, urging them to follow.

The reality of the situation hit the Hunter once more, and her mouth set itself in a thin line. "Shit. Where do you think she'd go?"

"Well, like you said; she came here as a diversion to lure us away. This is her opportunity to take that orb of Eris's, so…" Scorch gulped and finished off Dawn's sentence.

"She's likely heading to the tower right now."

Not five minutes later, they were on their sparrows, heading back towards their ships for faster travel. Scorch held her wrist interface up to her helmet to open a channel. "Seekers to tower, come in tower! Zavala, we've got a problem!"

-X-

"And I just looked at him, and said 'so it's a challenge then?'" The Hunter in question began to laugh loudly alongside her companions who she'd been retelling that particular story to. They walked with her over to the vaults.

"Alright, now just let me grab-" What exactly she was about to grab, they didn't find out. A green hole materialized in the air in the center of the courtyard, and exploded outward with a rush of air. Nothing was actually damaged, but the force from the concussive blast was enough to knock anyone near it off their feet. Omnigul now hovered where the hole had first appeared, greenish smoke trailing off of her ghastly form.

"What the hell is going on out here? Why-" Cayde walked up the stairs to the courtyard from the Hall of Guardians, and saw what had caused the commotion. He immediately turned his head back toward where he came and yelled, "Uh, guys? We've got a bit of a problem here!"

Omnigul screamed, and threw a beam of blue energy straight for his head. Luckily, Cayde wasn't just the joker he always appeared to be, and expertly rolled out of the way, all while drawing his custom-made hand cannon from its holster. Upon his feet making contact with the ground, bullets were already tearing through the air toward the Wizard. Omnigul cast a defensive barrier made from some kind of dirt-colored energy field. The bullets impacted harmlessly against it, and dropped to the ground.

Zavala, Ikora, and Eris all made it up the stairs, coming as quickly as they'd heard Cayde warning. Zavala assessed the situation quickly and efficiently. "Eris, she's here for your orb. Keep it safe, we'll deal with her."

Eris snarled slightly. "Like those 'Seekers' were supposed to deal with her?" Zavala made no comment on the apparent failure of Scorch's team, and instead began to bark out orders as Eris retreated back into the hall.

"Guardians, assemble! Do not let Omnigul get to Eris!"

The Hive Wizard made another gargling sound, and swiped the air with her claws. In an instant, a collection of Knights and Acolytes had appeared to aid her. Without further pause, she and her troops moved to attack.

Guardians immediately began to take out the Acolytes, they posed little to no threat aside from being cannon fodder and keeping Guardians from charging head on. The Acolytes returned fire, and several Guardians were forced to take cover behind kiosks or the vaults. The Knights began to move in, trying to push past the Vanguards and make their way into the hall. They were putting up a hell of a fight, but there were simply too many enemies. Zavala punched an Acolyte's skull in, and was forced to retract his hand lest the blade of a Knight make contact and sever it. He gave a sharp kick to the Knight, and sent them stumbling back a bit, before he noticed that his wrist interface was lighting up.

"…come in tower! Zavala, we've got a problem!" Zavala grunted as he listened to Scorch's voice and simultaneously used the armor on his free forearm to deflect a few bolts of gunfire that an Acolyte had sent his way. "If it has anything to do with Omnigul coming to the tower, we're already more than aware of the situation!" He ducked to avoid another sword, and Ikora leapt over to defend him as he communicated. "How long until you can get here?"

'We'll be there in roughly four minutes!" Zavala nodded. "I believe we can hold out that long; just make haste. We're in need of every available Guardian here!" With that, he cut the connection, and instead switched to an open channel, broadcasting to anyone on that frequency; "This is Zavala to all Guardians within a ten minute travel distance to the tower; we're under attack from Hive forces, and are attempting to delay them! They're after something here which they must not get their hands on! Cease what you are doing, and come to defend!"

That message would reach people no matter how far they were, but only a select few would be able to respond; Any Guardians on Earth would come, as would any currently on the Moon; but Mars and Venus were just a bit out of reach, and would be unable to assist. Hopefully they'd have enough.

Unfortunately, Omnigul was not partaking in the fighting; she had quickly chased after Eris, following her into the hall. Zavala called out, "Cayde!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it," came the Hunter's snarky response. Cayde quickly kicked his opponent away to gain a brief moment of respite, and followed Omnigul down the stairs.

He found the Wizard fighting Shaxx, who was giving a valiant effort to belay her. Becoming frustrated, the Wizard backhanded him and sent the crucible master tumbling into the wall. Then she rounded on Eris, armed with nothing but her fists and her orb.

Wasting no time, he unloaded his weapon into the Wizard's back. It didn't seem to do much, but at least it distracted her enough to get her to acknowledge him. The Hive general turned and screeched a challenge at him, giving Eris a chance to move back into cover, raising her claws and releasing more bolts of arc energy towards him. Again, he ducked, and reached around for his throwing knives. He let two fly, hoping at least one would find their mark, but Omnigul simply disintegrated them with her field before they could reach her.

"Oh, c'mon! Those were my favorite knives-" He didn't get to finish the sentence because Omnigul had charged him suddenly, and he sidestepped to avoid being smashed. She rounded on him again as he fumbled to reload.

Before she made a move however, a pair of arms appeared and wrapped around the Wizard's neck. Omnigul attempted to shake their attacker off, and rotated enough to where Cayde could see what was ailing her; Dawn had leapt up and was now literally riding the Wizard like a bucking bull. Scorch and Eager were trailing closely behind.

"Cayde, things are about to get kind of crowded down here!" The Exo looked up at the stairs where he noticed three Knights following them down the steps. "Oh, great. Now you tell me."

Omnigul, having finally reached the end of her patience, reached around and grabbed Dawn by the shoulder, and then proceeded to fling her across the room. She crashed into the quartermaster's desk, and pretty much broke it in two with her momentum.

"Eager, focus fire!" Both he and Scorch attempted to suppress the Hive, but the chitinous armor that adorned both Omnigul and the Knights' body made it rather difficult for the bullets to have any lasting effect unless they found a weak spot.

Omnigul analyzed them, and finally selected a target. Hissing to the Knights, two of them took her order and began to move towards Cayde who was now kneeling next to Dawn, trying to get her to rise. He spun around, ready to meet their approach. Meanwhile, Omnigul and the last Knight looked over at the remaining two. It was then that Scorch realized that this final Knight was massive, its head was nearly scraping the fifteen-foot tall ceiling.

Omnigul raised her claws, and in a split decision, Eager moved in front of Scorch. He conjured up a reasonable wall of void energy, and used it as a shield to block the arc bolts that the Wizard was firing at them.

All the while he kept up the defense, the Knight walked forward, and drew back its sword. Gaining as much inertia as it could, it brought the blade forward in a massive swing, and let it slam into Eager's void shield. The shield immediately broke from the force, and Eager flew backwards into Scorch. They tumbled backwards into the chamber where the Vanguards usually resided, coming to a stop before the long table that stood in the center of the pit. Scorch felt Eager's limp form laying on top of her, and she grunted in effort as she tried to move him off of her.

The Knight continued to advance while Omnigul began to back Eris into a corner. Scorch raised the Last Word as a final stand, emptying round after round into the Knight. The bullets left dents in its armor, but nothing much more than that.

Omnigul smacked Eris down, and reached forward to grab the orb. "No…" Scorch heard Eris groan. Omnigul began to cackle in victory, and the Knight in front of Scorch raised its sword up to deliver the killing blow. She shut her eyes, awaiting the end.

The sound of a spark zapping to life silenced everyone. All turned to look at the entrance to the hall where three Guardians stood. In the middle was a Hunter, his body crackling with electrical surges that gave off a blue aura, surrounding him in a cool glow. A bladedancer's trance.

Matt drew his knife menacingly, and one could tell from his controlled body movements that he was tense. This was the behavior of someone who was very dangerous, and very pissed off.

Scorch felt a number of emotions swirling around in her mind. The first and foremost was relief that more help had arrived. The second was confusion, at how the Heroes had even managed to be come here. And the third was just a bit of anger; once again, Matt was going to step in and take over her mission. Albeit, things had gotten quite out of hand, but there was a spark of rebelliousness nonetheless, and she let it simmer a bit.

The Knights attacking Cayde and Dawn roared at them, jolting everyone back into action. Aria ran forward and began to assist Cayde in dealing with the their attackers, while Ash and Matt sprinted forward to the chamber where Omnigul and Scorch were.

Matt made a beeline for Omnigul, and began to weave in and around her blue projectiles that she was so fond of throwing around. He continued to advance until he was close enough to start hacking away at her with his electrified knife, causing the Wizard to howl in pain.

The Knight decided to finish its original intention, and let its blade fall towards Scorch. She would have been killed if Ash had not taken the chance to barrel forward, and knock it off balance by charging into it. The blade flew out of its hand and stuck into the ground inches from Scorch and Eager's bodies. Once again, Scorch tried to shove the unconscious Warlock off of her so that she could rejoin the fray.

Ash was holding onto the leg of the Knight, just trying to keep it off balance; she knew that she was no match for it considering it was nearly up to the ceiling in height. Her act of stalling seemed to be working as the Knight clumsily stumbled about, until it reached down and pulled her off. Raising her up, it slammed her onto the table where she stirred slightly, incapacitated for the moment. The Knight took the chance to look over at its general.

Matt was climbing around on the Wizard's back, all while she tried to claw at him and throw him free of her. Unfortunately for her, Matt wasn't about to relinquish his grip, and upon finding a stable position, he grabbed at her neck with one hand to expose it, and then began to use his blade to saw through it in quick jerky motions.

The agony Omnigul was experiencing was quite obvious for the three seconds that she continued to scream until finally her neck was completely severed, and Matt tore her head free from her torso. Upon the moment of death, both the head and body began to dissolve into dust, Eris's orb falling to the ground with nothing solid left to support it in the air.

The Knight howled in anguish at its general being killed, and decided that it wasn't going to die without an act to even the score. Matt glanced over to see the Knight plucking its weapon from its embedded position in the floor, and reaching down to grab Ash who was still lying vulnerable on the table.

Without warning, it promptly held her in the air at arm's length as she weakly kicked to get free, and then skewered her upon the blade.


	6. From Bad to Worse

"ASH!" Scorch heard Matt's tortured yell off to the side, but could not do anything; she was frozen in shock at what the Knight had just done.

Ash's hands rushed to the wound in her chest, scrabbling futilely to remove the object impaling her. Bright blue liquid began to gush out of the opening, the equivalent of blood for an Exo. Slowly, Ash's movements began to desist until her hands fell limply to her sides. The Knight sloppily scraped her body off the blade where it fell onto the table like a rag doll.

With a cry of unparalleled fury, Matt charged the Knight, his bladedancer's trance rejuvenated in his emotional pain. Scorch looked down slightly to notice that she'd managed to unpin herself from Eager, and hurriedly scrambled up to where Ash was on the table, still bleeding out.

"H-hold on Ash, j-just hang in there…" she stammered. The hole in her chest was more destructive than Scorch had previously thought; with the blue gel-like blood now pouring all over the table and no longer obscuring view of the torso cavity, she could see that there were several mechanisms out of commission. A heart-like pump was trying ever so hard to keep the liquid circulating throughout her system, but failing as artery and vein-like tubes had been severed. Two bags of some artificial material were trying to inflate and deflate, although they weren't filling up properly due to one of them having been torn open.

All the while, Whip was zooming around and emitting small blue beams of light every so often, trying to repair what he could whether it was working or not. It was nauseating to see her body like this; people tended to think of Exos as just robots with souls, but they were so much more complex than that. Ash mumbled something incoherently, her eyes fluttering open and shut intermittently.

Meanwhile, the Knight had obviously messed with the wrong Guardian; Matt had taken little time in killing it by speedily jumping around and cutting its limbs off to incapacitate it. Once the Knight had fallen to the floor, he drove his blade into its face with one final thrust, and the creature breathed no more.

Immediately, his trance ended, and he left the knife in the Knight's head as he ran over to attend to Ash. "Whip, what's going on?!" he asked hysterically. Usually, the Ghost would have healed her by now.

"There's some kind of dark essence from that blade; my light isn't nearly as effective as it should be right now! Her wound just won't heal properly, she needs to be physically healed!" Matt nodded, all too aware of treating wounded people quickly before any other harm could come to them.

"She needs a medic! She needs help!" he yelled. Cayde responded by pointing toward the exit; "Get her to the infirmary, I'll send a healer Warlock after you!" Matt nodded, and with one quick motion scooped Ash into his arms. He then tried to jog at a healthy balance between carefulness and speed towards the staircase, Aria running after them. She stopped to help Shaxx up to his feet, and let him lean on her as she helped escort the Titan up the stairs as well.

Cayde held his interface up to his mouth; "This is Cayde to all local Guardians, I need three healer Warlocks in the infirmary ASAP, we've got an Exo in dire need of surgery; some kind of substance is keeping her from being healed by light, and I'd rather her not die." He waited a moment until a green light winked on the interface, signaling that someone had accepted the order.

Silence filled the room once they'd left, save for the slow sound of dripping that came from Ash's blood spilling off the table and onto the floor. Cayde helped Dawn up to her feet, and gave a long sigh. "This could have gone a lot better. To be fair, it could have been a lot worse as well." He turned towards Eris while Dawn made her way over to Eager, his usual joking demeanor apparently gone for the moment. "Eris, you alright?"

The woman was picking herself off the ground, and clutched the her newly regained orb tightly. "I will be fine." Cayde nodded. "Good. Hopefully, Ash is the worst casualty that we've suffered today, and we don't have to see anything else like that soon." Dawn picked Eager up, and set off to take him to the infirmary while Eris followed behind her, leaving Cayde alone with Scorch. He began to walk off.

"Cayde… is Ash gonna be alright?" He turned to Scorch, and looked troubled as he tried to find the words to answer her query.

"That's a tough one. Is it possible for Ash to turn out fine? Yes, absolutely; I've seen people come back from worse. But is it also possible that she dies? Certainly. Exos aren't just made out of a bunch of circuits that can be easily replaced, we've got much more fragile and complicated systems than that." He shrugged sadly. "So to answer your question, I don't know. I'd say that it's about a sixty/forty chance against her making it, but don't take that as a fact. Just keep a bit of hope alive for her."

Scorch felt a lump in her throat. "How does anyone… how do you deal with this so easily?"

The Hunter Vanguard gave another long sigh. "You learn to hide your emotions when you've been around as long as me. Sure, you can feel… but you can't let anyone else see, or else everyone would lose their calm. So I have to set an example, regardless of how much I care." He looked over at where Matt had disappeared.

"There's only one problem Matt has; and it's that he cares too much." Scorch was shocked to hear him say that about his favorite apprentice. "Too much about his teammates, about his friends, about the mission… and sometimes those priorities contradict one another." He looked over at her. "You know he loves Ash, right?"

Scorch looked down at her feet. "I've always had my suspicions, though he's never outright told me, or any of us for that matter."

Cayde nodded. "Good choice on his part."

At this Scorch looked back at him in surprise. "What?"

"I've been in this city a long time. The kind of relationship they have…" He shook his head. "It's just not going to be healthy in the long run."

Scorch scrunched her eyebrows up in confusion. "How can you say that?"

"Because I've been where he is before." He chuckled. "What, never thought ol' Cayde had someone? Well, I mean, not anymore at least." He looked down, and pulled something from his belt. It was a playing card. "I had this whole system to keep track of things, like weapons. Spades for Hakke, that kind of thing. But hearts…" He showed her the card in his hand, a Queen of Hearts. "Well, hearts were for this girl I knew. I still keep one around, useless as it may be…"

Scorch asked tentatively, "What happened?"

He met her gaze with an unusually cool one. She'd never had a conversation with him for this long without him cracking a joke of some kind. "Reality happened, and gave me a big wake-up call. The life of a Guardian… there just isn't any room for attachments. Emotions can be toyed with, and regardless of your views about it, having loved ones can end up being a weakness should your enemies realize it." He gestured at the table where Ash's blood had collected. "Like what happened there. Not to mention that they aren't even the same… species? I mean, what do we Exos qualify as? 'Homo roboticus?' Sounds weird."

Scorch shook her head to try and clear his ramblings from her mind. "Hold on, how come it's a problem for them to be different from one another?" She knew of her own beliefs on the issue already, ever present in the back of her mind. If anything, she simply wanted to challenge them and see if they could be invalidated.

"Like I said, I've been there. You ever see anyone like them down in the city? Anybody to fit that picture except for them?" She let her mind run through all the memories of when she was younger, seeing if any stood out in likeness to what Cayde had suggested. She found none.

"A relationship like theirs is practically unheard of. Sure, every now and again you get the odd Awoken and human pairing, but at least they're both 'organic', right?" He gave a small huff of annoyance as he said the word, and Scorch thought that perhaps Cayde had more experience with this topic than he'd let on. "Now a human and an Exo… people don't think that it's possible for love to occur there."

He narrowed his eyes. "I'll bet you didn't see many popular Exos down in the city during your… unfortunate childhood, right?" With a start, she realized he was right; almost everyone that she'd known had been either a human or Awoken. She'd see the occasional Exo roaming about, but almost always alone.

"What about it?"

"Well," he explained, "outside of the tower here… Exos aren't really liked. People see them more as products of humanity, property rather than equal beings. They don't trust 'machines' that can think on their own, and they certainly don't believe that they feel true emotion; they're of the opinion that everything is simply a expression of programming," he finished bitterly. "That's why we have so many Exos as Guardians here; it's just about the only work that they can get, you need every hand available when you're fighting for the survival of humanity."

He waved at the exit to the hall once more. "So yes, their relationship is unhealthy. Not only is it a potential point of vulnerability should the other face danger, but they'll likely face ridicule and discrimination where they go as a result."

Scorch fell silent, taking in all of this information. Finally, she settled on, "Are you going to do anything about it?"

He pointed at himself. "Me? Hell no. I'm probably one of the very few around here who sees what they truly are; not even Ikora or Zavala have a clue. The fact that they're best friends is going to help hide that detail for a while. And it certainly isn't my place to judge or interfere." Again, he looked at the Queen of Hearts before he grunted and shoved it back into a pouch.

"Anyway… that's enough social commentary for right now. I'm going to go assess the damage of the attack; you should look into the conditions of Ash and Eager." With that, he strode out of the room leaving her alone with her thoughts.

She felt anger, a lot of it; anger for the situation, anger at the Hive, anger for the bigotry against Matt and Ash, and anger at Matt himself; she absolutely knew that he had to be in horrible pain right now, but she couldn't help but think that it was partially his fault. Had he not ordered the Heroes to interfere, Ash wouldn't be in this condition; that was on him, not her. But she also knew that the situation would be worse if he hadn't showed up. She was thankful for his help, but angry at how he'd handled it, trying to take over the situation rather than simply assisting.

Deciding that the best thing to do right now was to comfort her friend and stow any thoughts of scolding him, she set off for the infirmary, intent on helping any way she could.

-X-

"Alright, spinmetal!"

"Here you go."

"Ghost, start the process."

Scorch heard the voices of several healers in a room to her left, assumedly operating on Ash. There were a few specially designed rooms for more intrusive and imperative surgeries, but the vast majority of Guardians were treated out here in the main lobby; a large complex that almost appeared to be more of a well-kept and sanitary warehouse than a hospital. She stuck her hands into the pockets of her jacket, having taken the opportunity to change out of her armor into something more casual. Wearing it around just made her feel like she was waiting for another disaster to happen, and she didn't want to jinx anything.

It was a massive room with beds filling the center of it. Many injuries could simply be fixed with a bit of Radiance therapy and some bandages; anything superficial like that was dealt with here. Others like Ash were contained in the operating rooms that Scorch had walked by. She made the choice to look for Eager instead, as Ash's room was likely a bit hectic right now; she would check in later. Many beds in the main room were occupied as well, several healers darting around to attend to the Guardians who'd suffered things like broken fingers or a stray bolt in defending the courtyard.

Keeping her eyes peeled, she found Eager sitting on a bed near the nearest corner of the room, Dawn at his side. She strode over to them, alerting them to her presence with her footsteps. "Hey, you two alright?"

Eager nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. Must've knocked a wire or something loose when they chucked you and me into the Vanguard's table. Came to in here pretty much unscathed. Chest hurts a bit, but they'll take care of that soon."

Dawn watched him as he spoke until he turned to her, awaiting her response on the matter as well. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was more worried about you two and Ash."

Eager winced, and faced Scorch again. "Yeah, Dawn told me about that. Is she gonna be alright?" Scorch opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated. What was she supposed to say, that Ash might end up dying because she tried to protect them?

He noticed her pause, and his eyes turned downcast. "That bad, huh?" Scorch realized her mistake, and grimaced.

"Well… the odds are against her, but not by much. Cayde seems to think that she's got a fair chance of pulling through as long as the healers do their job right." Eager nodded again, taking any kind of hope they had and building around it.

Dawn's gaze shifted to her. "What happened exactly? Why couldn't Whip just heal her like one normally would?"

Scorch furrowed her eyebrows. "I'm not sure exactly, but from what I heard it seems that the Knight's blade was coated with something that kept light from affecting her; I'm not sure what that means if it comes down to her dying and whether or not she can be revived." She hadn't meant to freak either of them out, but the she could tell from the looks on their faces that they were troubled by this information.

"Jeez… I mean, I haven't seen or heard about anything like that since the Thorn…" muttered Eager. "Then again, Dredgen Yor did become corrupted from becoming too close to the Hive; maybe he learned it from them and infused it into his gun."

Dawn crossed her arms. "If that's the case, we need to keep that in mind when we go up against these Hive int he future; they seem different, more militarized than other encounters. Probably the result of being Crota's personal army."

Scorch picked up on something in Dawn's voice; she was putting up a facade of toughness, but there was a slight waver. She motioned to her; "Hey, Dawn; I gotta talk to you for a moment. Eager, we'll be right back alright?" The Exo nodded again, and placed his hand back on his abdomen where the pain originated.

Scorch pulled Dawn aways a bit, into an spot of the room where nobody could hear them; everybody else was focusing on getting treated.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Dawn looked like she wanted to confirm it, but couldn't without Scorch knowing she was lying. Scorch raised her eyebrows, still waiting for an answer. Dawn relented and a worried expression came over her features.

"I guess, it's just… Ash is like a sister to me. We may not be identical in the slightest but there's still that connection." She shuffled her feet. "I know you and Eager are good friends with her, but it's just a little bit more close to home for me. Sorry if that sounds odd."

Scorch didn't think that sounded odd in any way at all. Dawn was constantly trying to act different from her twin; Ash was emotional, Dawn was tough. Ash let things get to her at times, and Dawn let everything roll off of her. It may have had something to do with the fact that Ash was a different persona whereas Dawn's personality matched that of the Warrior's- but Scorch knew it was likely because Ash was the original of the two. And Dawn never wanted to seem like she was just a copy of someone else, in the same way that Ash was so drastically different from _her_ original; the Warrior.

She placed a hand on Dawn's shoulder. "Believe me, I'd be more worried if you weren't a bit depressed by this. You put up so many walls to look tough to everyone… it's alright to let them down every once in a while. I already know that you're probably the toughest person I know." She flashed a smile.

The Exo's blue eyes shone back at her, finding sincerity in Scorch's words. Unexpectedly, she pulled Scorch into a hug, and the Hunter had no choice but to reciprocate, patting the Titan's back ever so softly.

"Thanks." said Dawn simply. Nothing else was needed, both friends understood the other fine.

They pulled apart to the sound of approaching footsteps. Looking toward the source, they found Aria walking up to them with a grim expression on her face.

"How are you two doing?" she asked briskly. Scorch noticed that he usually optimistic and enthusiastic attitude was missing, without a doubt the result of how close she was to Ash and what she was going through.

"We're fine," answered Scorch carefully. "Is Ash alright?"

The Awoken exhaled deeply in stress. "Why don't you two come see?"

-X-

Aria entered the room first, followed by Dawn and then Scorch. There was more then enough space in the room so long as people didn't crowd around the bed in the middle of it.

Matt was sitting in a chair at the bed's side, watching its occupant intently. Apparently, he'd had the same idea as Scorch, and had dressed into a different change of clothes while the healers had operated; he had on his usual off-duty attire of black jeans and a jacket. He turned toward the sound of people entering the room, appeared to approve of Aria coming in, and then promptly widened his eyes at the entrance of Dawn and Scorch. They narrowed a moment a later, but he did not comment on it; instead, he turned back to watching Ash. Scorch looked her over as well, assessing the Exo.

Ash's chest still had a large hole in it, but all the machinery inside had been replaced and repaired to the best of Whip and the healers' abilities. The heart-like pump that she'd earlier was now pulsing stably, if not a bit slow. The torn air-bag had been completely replaced; while the untouched one was a black color, this one was silver, though otherwise identical in appearance and function. The blue gel-blood was no longer spilling out thankfully, but dried remnants still stained the edges of the gap in her chest, a small reminder of what the Exo had survived.

"She's not awake yet, her body nearly shut down to preserve life-functions," explained Aria shakily, "but she should come back around in a while." Dawn looked over at her twin with something akin to a mixture of both relief and sadness in her eyes; sadness at how bad a state she'd been in, but relief that she was going to pull through.

"It was touch and go for a while," continued the Warlock. "Whip had to physically operate and replace all the broken bits of her while the healers kept her stable and alive." She looked over at her friend on the bed. "That dark essence sure didn't help, though the healers estimated it would wear off in a few days. Scary thought. But hopefully she'll be back up and fighting soon." At this note, Aria's voice sounded just a bit more like her usual self, and Scorch could tell she was happy with the prospect.

Matt said nothing all the while, just staring intently at Ash's face, waiting for him to wake up.

"Matt?"

He turned to look over at Scorch who was tentatively testing the waters. She tried to think of something to ask, but all her questions sounded dumb. 'Are you alright?' No, of course he wasn't alright, his best friend had nearly died a few minutes ago.

He seemed to understand that she couldn't think of something proper to say, and rather than filling in the blanks, he ignored her. Instead, he turned to Aria and said, "I need to go see Eris. Can you watch her for a bit?"

Aria nodded without a moment's pause. "Absolutely."

He grunted in acknowledgement, and stood up. "She's gonna need to see you too Scorch." That was the only direct statement he issued to her before he walked out, not bothering to wait. Scorch weighed her options, and quickly decided to follow Matt.

She jogged to catch up to him leaving the infirmary, and now walking across the courtyard. "Hey, uh, what are seeing Eris for?" He didn't answer her, and just continued on down the stairs to the Hall of Guardians as Scorch tried to keep pace.

Scorch was getting bit tired of the silent treatment here, and just wanted him to do something; whether it was talking or yelling at her, she didn't care. She just wanted a sign that he acknowledged her.

Matt approached the table where the Vanguards and Eris stood near, discussing the aftermath of the attack. "So we've got no fatalities, just a few injuries and then Ash." Cayde confirmed Ikora's question with a quick nod.

"It seems that way. We managed to come out luckier than we should have-" He stopped when he noticed that Matt had entered the room. "Hey. How're you holding up?"

Matt shrugged. "I'm fine; she pulled through. I'm just here to do my job." He walked over to Eris who stood at a distance from the table, observing the Vanguards. "I believe you asked for this before we left."

He procured a shard of something; Scorch remembered Eris asking him to bring her proof that the soul-crystal had been destroyed. She guessed that this was it.

Eris took it gratefully, and looked at him. "Excellent. This will bring us one step closer to destroying Crota." She gestured toward the various battle damages and marks around the room they were in. "And I saw firsthand that Omnigul has been destroyed. I have you to thank for that as well." She didn't say anything, but Scorch could've sworn that she detected the bite of a subtly hidden jab at Scorch and her fireteam.

"What's the next step?" he asked. Scorch was amazed; after all that had happened, he was still rearing about to finish the mission? Maybe Cayde had been right; his priorities were getting messed up, and he was using work as a way to cope with his grief. That wasn't safe.

Fortunately, Cayde seemed to sense the same thing, and walked over. "Well, Eris; I mean, they got done what you needed immediately, there's no rush is there? Especially with one of their members in such a critical condition?" Eris looked like she wanted to argue at first, but realized what he was getting at. "Of course. A respite would be beneficial for everyone; tend to your wounded, Guardian. I will notify you when we have need of you."

Matt opened his mouth, probably to say something stupid like 'I'm fine', but closed it without a sound. He just bowed slightly, and and turned around to leave. Cayde gave Scorch a knowing look, and motioned for her to follow him. She knew what he wanted her to do, and she agreed. She followed after Matt hurriedly.

He was already at the top of the stairs when she caught up to him. "Matt, it's nothing personal. They just think that you need a break." He said nothing, ignoring her again.

She clenched her teeth. "Matt? Hello?" He continued on without acknowledging her.

She'd finally had enough, and stopped in the middle of the courtyard. "Look, this isn't helping anyone. If you're pissed at me, come out and say it; but don't walk around ignoring me like I'm beneath you or some-"

He spun around so quickly that she was surprised he didn't fall over. "Oh, I'm pissed. And I'm only keeping silent so that I don't start saying things that I might regret later, despite how much you may deserve them right now."

She crossed her arms, refusing to let this slide. "Alright then, hit me with it. Let it out."

Matt debated with himself for a moment, but quickly took her up on her offer. "Where do I start? How about with the fact that my best friend almost died today? Huh? Do we want to get that little tidbit out of the way?"

Scorch uncrossed her arms, and held them out toward him in a submissive manner. "Look, I feel horrible for what happened to Ash; but I don't see how you can come around and blame me of that."

He scoffed. "How about the part where she was injured because she was trying to protect you? Trying to protect you from a situation that I'm sure you'll say you had 'under control', am I right?" His voiced was now escalating in volume, not quite at the point of yelling, but he'd be there soon.

Other Guardians were starting to look at them, watching the spectacle unfold. She shook her head. "The situation got out of hand, absolutely; but that wasn't on us. We were tricked, Omnigul tricked us. She was never meant to come here, _nobody_ was prepared for that."

He laughed mirthlessly. "See, that's your problem Scorch. 'Nobody was prepared for that'. You don't consider all the possibilities, all the ramifications of your actions; you go charging into things without thinking about the consequences, and then you deal with them later."

"That's not fair," she argued, "it's not like you don't do the same thing." He froze.

"What?"

"When you guys were just starting out as a team, I know you did the same things I've done! The Black Garden, meeting the Stranger, it's all the same thing! You just managed to have better luck with it, at least until you challenged the Vault." He glared at her, but let her speak. "And this, just now? You came expecting to swoop in and fix everything on the spot, but guess what? Things didn't pan out, and Ash almost died!"

"How dare you imply-"

"Oh, I _do_ imply," she continued boldly. "I don't think either of us are at fault; people get hurt. But if I am somehow considered to be at fault here, then you can be guaranteed that you share some of that blame with me for ordering your team to interfere!"

" _Interfere?!"_ he yelped, taken aback. "What the hell did you think we were trying to do, I- I- steal your thunder?" He pointed accusingly at her. "Did you think that we were there just because we wanted to show off? We got a message from Zavala while we were flying back here, and came as soon as we could! It wasn't a matter of credit!" Now he was shouting, obviously furious with her in disbelief that she'd seemingly accuse him of something so petty.

Both of their Ghosts materialized, and hovered to a few feet away. "You two both need to just take a deep breath, and-" began Seraph, but Matt cut her off. "Not yet, she wanted this, now she'd gonna get it." Spectre said nothing, allowing Scorch to fend for herself here.

"I agree, it's not a matter of credit; it's a matter of the fact that regardless of your intent, people got hurt!" She pointed back towards the infirmary door behind Matt. "Eager got hurt, Ash got hurt, and it probably could have been even worse! My point is that you need to come to terms with that, and stop trying to protect everyone!"

He was still fuming at her, but his eyes narrowed a bit in confusion. "What?"

"You have this habit, this flaw of thinking that you can save everyone!" Now she was on the same volume as he was, shocking the onlookers with the ferocity of their dispute. "Trying to take on the Black Garden alone, sacrificing yourself in the final battle for the Traveler, we're not helpless!"

Seraph looked over at Scorch nervously, "Scorch, maybe you should tone it down before you say something-"

Scorch knew that the Ghost was right, but she couldn't keep the words from tumbling out of her mouth. "You keep saying that I need to learn how to think of the consequences; well, you need to learn that you aren't the line between life and death!" She took a deep breath, trying to will herself to stop but her mouth wasn't cooperating;

"Stop comparing every person that you know to Sara! I get that she died, I get that you felt helpless to stop it! But people die everyday; that's a part of living, and you need to get over it! Not everyone you know is going to die like she did!"

Her hands flew to her mouth to cover it in realization of what she'd just said, but the damage was done. Scorch instantly knew that she'd gone too far as Matt's eyes widened, and his face lost all expression in shock. All were silent, and no one, not she, he, nor any of the circle of Guardians around them said anything.

Seraph and Spectre just looked at her. "Scorch…" She could here the disbelief in Seraph's voice, and the hurt that Scorch had used that private information against Matt.

She reached forward a tiny bit. "Oh my God, I- I… Matt, I didn't mean that-"

Nothing could have prepared her for the fist that smacked into her jaw, sending her reeling backwards. She could hear the collective grasp of the crowd around them, at a loss for words at the act of aggression.

Regaining her footing, she reached a hand up to her mouth and felt her lip; her hand came away bloody. She looked up in time to see Matt throwing another punch, and she quickly ducked to the side. She grabbed the base of his arm, and pulled him towards her, sending a knee into his abdomen once he was close enough. Having stunned him, she threw him back.

It was his turn to stumble backwards, hand clutching his side to apply pressure and hopefully make the pain disappear faster. Scorch decided that the best move was to strike while he was distracted; otherwise, there was no way she was going to best him in a physical fight, he was just too experienced.

She jumped forward and kicked at him, but he'd already sidestepped and grabbed her leg. Using her forward momentum, he simply added it to his own and threw her behind him, where she landed on the ground and skidded a few feet.

"Stop! Please, Matt!" Seraph's cries for reason went unnoticed as the Hunter simply walked past his Ghost, refusing to address her. Scorch had never seen him like this before; it was like he'd snapped, and suddenly was no longer in control of his actions. She was in a dangerous position indeed.

He bent down and let a hand stretch toward her throat. She used her arms to grip his hand for support, and then swung her legs over it until she had her feet against his head. Now, she began to push away, causing tension to strain in his shoulder socket.

Grunting, he began to lift her up into the air. She looked around wildly, shocked at how much adrenaline must be pumping through his system to allow him to do this. Then, he let her weight and his added force fall once more, and slammed her into the ground.

She immediately relinquished her grip on him, her eyes seeing stars. She focused her eyes back on Matt, seeing him livid with fury and, scarily enough, with his blade drawn. She inhaled sharply, pitting hope against hope that he wouldn't dare use that here.

Before it was seen exactly what he would do with it, a voice rang out; "STOP!"

Matt ceased what he was doing, and he, Scorch, and the rest of the audience around them turned toward the source. Cayde was standing there, a deadly expression on his face. He appeared unarmed, but unpin closer inspection, she saw his hand inching very close to where his concealed hand cannon was. Behind him stood Aria and Eager, all three of them looking at the scene before them like one would analyze a bomb; carefully, and ever aware of how dangerous the situation was. This was a level of chaos that Scorch was completely unfamiliar with; how had everything fallen apart so fast?

Her friend's chest was heaving with exertion and the hyperactive state his body had just been in. Matt looked at Cayde with something like confusion in his eyes.

"Put it away, Matt." Cayde gestured toward the object in Matt's hands, and he finally looked down. He saw the knife as though for the first time, and his eyes widened with surprise. He quickly let it drop to the floor, as though afraid of what he'd almost been about to do with it.

"I- I…" he stammered, and Scorch realized that just like her, he'd never meant for things to progress this far. He looked at Scorch with a frightened look in his eyes, reflecting the same one that she was giving him. There was a silent agreement that they'd both come to and knew that the other had realized it as well; Matt could have easily killed her if Cayde hadn't stepped in. He'd overpowered her without too much difficulty, and had very nearly lost complete control of his proper judgement. Neither of them was sure if he would've stopped himself, and both were grateful for the outside intervention.

Cayde let his hand fall away from his gun, and sighed with the depressing feeling that came from nearly having to go up against one of his closest friends. "Ash is asking for you, Matt. I told her you'd come as soon as you could."

Reason was beginning to make its way back into the mind of the Hunter standing above her. She could see his eyes blinking as he made sense of both the situation and what Cayde was telling him. Slowly, he began to walk away from the scene, towards the infirmary. Without warning, he stopped, and turned back towards her.

The look he was giving her was conflicted; she saw both emotions of anger and fear flitting across his face, both directed at her but in different ways. Eventually, they reached a compromise, and he took a few steps back to her until he was standing above her again.

He lowered his hand, letting it hang in the air above her chest.

She saw what he was offering with this simple gesture; a truce. Maybe not forever, as they'd definitely need to resolve their dispute, but for the moment at least. She took it without a moment's hesitation, and allowed him to help her up to her feet.

Once she was properly stable on her own two feet, Matt gave her a quick nod; one that said, _We'll be talking about this later_. Then he set off again in the direction of Ash.

The crowd began to disperse until nobody was left but Scorch, Cayde, Aria, and Eager. The other three looked at her with blank expressions, they were unsure of what to think.

"What happened?" asked Eager softly. Scorch shook her head, unsure of what to say but just knowing that she wanted to put it off until later.

"No, you haven't earned the right to silence." That came from Aria, her arms crossed over her chest. "We come out here to see what all the noise was about, and you two were just about to kill each other."

Seraph appeared at Aria's shoulder. "I… I talked with her a few days ago, and told her about why Matt is so overprotective of everyone. I explained about what happened to Sara…"

The Awoken girl's eyebrows shot up to match the widening of her eyes. "No!"

Seraph's gaze drifted towards the grunt. "And she brought her up, threw her death in his face. Told him that he shouldn't keep trying to protect everyone because of what happened to her."

The Warlock turned towards Scorch. "In that case, I almost don't blame him. I mean, did you have a death wish? To talk about something so personal to him in the disgusting way you did… it's enough to make anyone snap. If I remember correctly, my advice to you as a kid was to 'be brave', not 'be a reckless asshole'."

Scorch felt her eyes moistening, and she blinked rapidly. "I-I messed up. I went too f-far…" For this, none of them had a response. Scorch had always been the most resilient of them, having learned to never show anyone how she was feeling; years of living on the streets had done that to her. To see that shell breaking was a shock for them all.

"I n-never meant to h-hurt him like that. I shouldn't have said w-what I said," she muttered sniffling.

Aria snorted. "You think? Look, I don't blame you for Omnigul's attack, or for what happened to Ash. She was injured doing her job, same as what could have happened to anyone." She jabbed a finger at Scorch. "But it goes without saying that what you just did is… well, I can't say unforgivable with certainty, maybe Matt has a softer side than I do. But if I know him as well as I think I do, then I wouldn't count on it. When you're ready to act like a real Guardian, like his friend… then you can talk to him again. Until then, leave him alone." With that, Aria headed back the same way Matt had.

Cayde took a second to get his bearings, and then left without saying anything; somehow, his silence said more about his thoughts than any speech of his ever could.

Eager just walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "You alright?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she stared at the ground, thinking of how she may have just lost one of the few true friendships she had, and wondering if she had any hope of ever getting it back.

* * *

A/N: Alright, so BIG conflict here. Whose side are you on? Do you all think Scorch or Matt is in the right? Feel free to let me know in the reviews below, I seem to be suffering a drought of them at the moment. Seriously, FEED ME YOUR THOUGHTS...

A joke of course, but they do motivate me to get the next chapters out faster; plus I don't know how you guys are feeling unless you let me know. So...

Anyway, the next few chapters should calm down just a bit; they're going to focus on recovery and how Scorch and Matt are dealing with their fallout. So be prepared for that!


	7. Enlightenment

Ash turned her head weakly when she head footsteps walking down the hall outside her room. Within a few seconds, she was able to put a face to the sounds when Matt walked through the open doorway. She tried to smile in an attempt to show him she was fine, but she could tell that he wasn't having any of it.

His eyes first looked over at Dawn who was kneeling next to the bed, having been talking with Ash. Dawn followed her twin's gaze to the doorway, and hastily stood up. "I'll be back in a bit," she muttered, trying to give the other two some alone time to discuss what had happened.

He walked over to the chair that he'd left at her bedside, and sat down, his back hunched over and his hands clasped together in between his legs. Ash had seen Matt worried before, she knew his facial expressions and body language all too well.

"Hey," she called softly. He said nothing, but she watched his eyes spark in acknowledgement. She figured that he was going to remain that way until someone calmed him down, and apparently that job was now left to her.

"Look, I'm fine," she said, trying to assuage his fears. "I'm fine, everything's gonna be okay." Without saying a word, Matt reached over and lifted up the blanket that she'd been using to conceal the gaping hole in her chest. He just looked at her, expecting her to comment on that and attempt to form a rebuttal.

She sighed. "Everything is in working order there, I can breathe fine again, and they're going to fix up the plating there so that my innards aren't exposed anymore," she said with a lighthearted tone.

"I almost lost you today."

Her eyes immediately lowered, hearing the pain in Matt's voice. Hearing it so apparent in his tone and for her sake just made her feel horrible. "I know, but the point is that you didn't. I'm here, I'm right here." She reached over a hand, and he reciprocated by extending his own and holding hers gently in it, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

"I know, I know." He exhaled deeply. "I just… you know that I get worried. Especially with how bad a condition you were in." She said nothing; she actually didn't know how bad things had gone with her, she'd been unconscious for most of the time after she'd been impaled. And from Matt's tone, she wasn't sure she wanted to know just how close to death she'd come.

"So, everything's good?" she asked.

He nodded. "Omnigul's dead, we destroyed the crystal; all that's left is to wait for Eris's word, and it's off to kill Crota for us." She smiled sadly. "Just one mission after another with you, huh?" He sighed, and his eyes turned slightly to where he wasn't meeting her gaze.

"I don't know. I just needed something else to focus on, something to keep you out of my mind." He looked back at her, an apologetic expression on his face. "Sorry if that sounds harsh."

She shook her head. "Not harsh, I get it. Can't be falling apart on everyone." She thought about the reason she'd challenged that Knight in the first place. "How's Scorch? Is she alright?"

At the mention of the other Hunter's name, Matt's eyes darkened, and flicked to his hands. Ash followed the brief movement, and saw something that surprised her. "Is that _blood_?"

He wiped his hands on his jacket. It wasn't very much, but it was blood nonetheless. "It was nothing; we just had a bit of a spat."

"A spat left you with blood on your hands? What'd you do, beat her up?" She said it with a slight joking tone in her voice, but surprisingly he shrugged unapologetically.

"Just popped her in the mouth pretty well. Cayde stopped things before they got too out of hand." He held a hand up as she began to sit up to scold him, "I didn't want anything to get that far, but she pushed way past her limits and some personal boundaries."

"What boundaries?" she asked incredulously. She'd never known Matt to get so angry that he'd snap and attack a fellow Guardian except when he'd protected her from the three rogue Guardians who still thought she was the Warrior and had tried to throw her off the tower.

He looked away, and took several seconds before answering. "Somehow, she knew about Sara. Pretty sure that Seraph might have told her. And she decided to throw her death in my face, saying that I was comparing you to her."

Ash had no words; Scorch had brought _Sara_ into this? That was low, way too low. Still, she was more logical in her assessment of the situation than anyone else apparently; tensions had likely been high for both teams, seeing as Scorch had just finished trying to take down Omnigul and gotten stuck in the middle of a small invasion of the tower, and Matt had been dealing with the fact that Ash had been in critical condition. It was no wonder that they both probably did several things that each of them regretted.

"You didn't blame her for me, did you?" she whispered. He kept his gaze away from her, refusing to meet her eyes. It was all but a confirmation.

"Matt…" she said, wondering how she could fix this. "That wasn't her fault, and I know that you know that just as well as I do." He still said nothing, but his shoulders were tensing up, showing that he was definitely listening to her. She sat up straighter against the frame of the bed, despite the slight pain that it took to do so.

"Look at me." He obeyed, and she found herself looking into his pained eyes, hints of shame hidden behind them. Blue stared into green, unyielding.

"I want you to tell me that you know it's not her fault," she said sternly. He waited a few moments, but relented.

"Of course I know it's not her fault; but with all the stress of everything spiraling out of control, her total disregard for the severity of the situation, and then the way she provoked me…" He snorted derisively. "She sure as hell didn't make it too hard to see a connection, even if there wasn't one. My mind just needed someone to blame, and I guess she put herself in the line of fire."

Ash nodded knowingly. "I get it, believe me. But things still need to be fixed between you two." He returned her nod.

"Oh, I know. But not right now, I'm thinking that maybe I need a bit of space from her. Once I get a clear head back on my shoulders, I'll be sure to patch things up. So long as she's willing to do the same."

Ash laughed. "Oh, believe me, I'm sure that after a smack like the one you probably gave her, she'll be all for getting on your good side." Matt rolled his eyes.

"Oh, she's tougher than she lets on; she can take a sock to the jaw every now and then." He smiled and moved his hand up to her shoulder where he squeezed it affectionately. "I love you."

"I love you too," she responded, letting her features twist into an upward pull on the edges of her lips. They sat there contentedly, simply enjoying the silence and each other's company for once. Matt thought about when the last time they'd had a chance for quality time together, and he felt more than a little disappointed that they hadn't had the opportunity to relax for a long time. An idea struck him, and he realized that maybe he could take up Cayde and Eris on their order to rest and wait for further instruction.

"You said that the healers are gonna come in here and repair your plating?"

She nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, in a few hours. Once they do, I'll be good as new and released. However, I'm pretty sure that Whip said something about Light not working on me for a few days."

He smirked. "Well, I've got an idea then. And don't worry, the Light detail won't be an issue." He leaned over and kissed her lightly, and then pulled away and stood up.

"Where are you going?" she asked confusedly. He held his hands up in submission.

"I'm just gonna let Dawn come back in here for a while; besides, I need to set up something with a contact of mine. I'll be back soon." With that, he stepped out of the room, leaving her to ponder what it was he was discussing with this so-called 'contact' of his.

-X-

Scorch strolled down the sidewalk, her hands in her jacket pockets. She wore her hood up, attempting to protect herself from the elements. It was winter as evidenced by the cold sparrow race she'd had a few weeks ago and the light snowfall that drifted through the air now; though it rarely snowed hard in the city, there were often freak storms in the winter like the one happening currently which left the city under a layer of white fluff. It may have been pretty if she'd been someone else, but her personal experiences when it came to dealing with frost and freezing temperatures involved huddling for warmth in a cardboard box as a homeless teen.

After the colossal breakdown of the situation earlier, she'd decided to take up Aria's advice and head out on her own for a bit. Eager would be fine on his own, probably try to see what he could help the task force with, and Dawn wanted to be with Ash for a while. Scorch was perfectly content letting both of them do that, as she wanted nothing but to be left alone for awhile.

There was no denying it now; she'd screwed up. Matt had given her a chance, albeit reluctantly, when Eris had assigned Scorch to kill Omnigul. She had taken that chance, and not only had she been unable to contain the situation, the Heroes had to step in, and Ash had nearly died.

Not only that, but she'd acted like a brat; trying to find someone to pin her troubles on rather than accepting her own mistakes. She found a small part of her still arguing for her original side, but now the majority of Scorch's mind sided with Matt; she'd been careless, unprepared. And then she had to bring up Sara's death and use it against him. _She_ wouldn't even forgive someone if they had said what she did to her. So who was she to ask that Matt do it?

She stepped around another civilian, one of the few passerby out and about like her. No, the only choice was to take his criticism and learn from it. This wasn't usually like her; but maybe she didn't want to be usual anymore. This was a new, more mature Scorch that walked around in the city streets, one with a slightly wider understanding of how the world worked than the Scorch that had fought Matt in the tower.

Maybe she needed a drink to calm her nerves. She looked around, noticing that she was in a part of the city that wasn't as… well, proper as the rest of it. It was more of a low-life area, where people probably weren't gonna be as kind. Still, that didn't mean much. She could handle herself fine, and she'd had to pass through parts like these as a kid without incident. As she craned her neck around, she spied a bar, appearing to be in reasonably better condition than the rest of the surrounding area, and she set off at a brisk pace for it.

She pushed open the doors and stepped inside quickly, trying to be polite and keep the snowfall from tracking in with her. There were a few other customers inside, most of them sitting at the bar counter, though a few of them sat at small tables that adorned the rest of the place every so often.

She decided to follow the popular example, and found a lone seat at the far end of the bar, away from other people and prying eyes. The bartender walked over to her, and grunted. She took that as an inquiry of what she was going to order.

"Some type of whiskey if you've got it," she muttered. He shrugged, and moved a ways way to grab some bottles and pour them into a glass. He placed it on the counter, and slid it down to her waiting hand. She raised it up to her lips, and drank, feeling the burn of it against her throat in a satisfying feeling not unlike a cleanse. Spectre materialized discreetly, and hovered next to her on the left where he wouldn't be seen.

"There's no point in my chastising you when everyone else has already done a good enough job of it." She sighed, and faced the Ghost.

"Then what's your point?"

He wavered a bit in the air. "I don't really have a point. I mean, you know you screwed up, and you're probably kicking yourself the hardest right now, and rightfully so. I'm just asking; are you going to fix it?" She knew that he was referring to the bond between her and Matt. She exhaled slowly, mulling that one over in her mind.

"I have to try. I know that I have to make things right, and I'm definitely capable of that; but whether he'll want to have any ties afterwards, I don't know. And I'm fine if he doesn't, because I was a horrible friend to him, and honestly I don't deserve his friendship right now." She shook her head angrily at herself. "I can't believe I said something so wrong to him. I had no right to do that."

Spectre bobbed in the air in agreement. "See, you're maturing already. Like I said, no point in adding onto the scolding from me, you're already doing a great job of it yourself."

She rolled her eyes, but smirked nonetheless. "Thanks."

Suddenly, she heard the sound of the door to the bar opening, and the whistle of the wind as it tried to enter after the person using it. Sounded like the storm was getting worse.

She saw the bartender glance up at the newcomer, and immediately narrow his eyes. "Hey, we don't serve your kind here. Hit the road!" he called, jabbing his thumb to the side. Scorch was taken aback by the bartender's attitude, and turned around to see who had entered.

It was an Exo, their entire form covered with flakes of snow and his joints creaking from the ice that had been forming on them. The figure seemed to be that of a male, taller and with a frame more like Eager's than that of Ash or Dawn. They wore clothing that looked like it might help against the cold a little, but obviously wasn't ideal; he wore nothing other than a pair of old jeans with several holes in them, and a thin black jacket covered with white flecks of ice.

"I'm not looking for a drink, don't worry. I just want to be somewhere warmer than it is out there." He nodded his head toward the door, iterating how cold and chilling it was at this time.

The bartender shook his head. "I didn't ask what you're looking for, whatever it is you ain't gonna find it here. Doesn't matter if it's a cardboard box for all I care, but you can find someplace else to hole up in tonight."

Scorch couldn't believe her ears, and expected someone to call out the obvious bigotry. But none of the other customers seemed even remotely disturbed by the incident, and kept their heads turned away as the Exo looked from person to person, looking for any support from the patrons. She realized that he wasn't going to find any at the same time that he did, and he sighed, pulling the hood of his jacket back up as he prepared to enter the blistering cold again. He turned to the door.

"Uh, no." All fell silent as the Exo stopped moving, and turned toward the sound of Scorch's voice. The bartender also saw her, and narrowed his eyes.

"If you'd like, you can get out too lady. I have the right to tell him to shove off." She was already shaking her head, and revealed Spectre to the entire establishment.

"Actually, you don't. At least not while I'm here; see, I'm a Guardian in case you haven't noticed. I'm one of the people who helps defend all of humanity from extinction, extinction from several races of aliens that want _all_ of us dead, organic or not. And I talk with the Vanguards daily, y'know those people who are basically in charge of the city and your protection? Oh, and one of which is an Exo?" She smirked as she rubbed it in his face, though she was fuming inside. Who did this racist asshole think he was?

"So if you don't mind, I'm going to _officially_ request politely that you refrain from throwing him out. I suppose it's your choice, but just know that the alternative is having the Vanguards find out about this little incident; and I'm sure they wouldn't be too happy about it." She shrugged, and waited for his decision.

The bartender was slightly red in the face and looked like he wanted to argue, but with one final expression of disgust that he cast over at both her and the Exo, he turned around and left them alone. Scorch stood up away from the counter, and walked over to one of the tables in a more secluded part of the bar, beckoning for the Exo to follow her.

He did as she gestured, and sat opposite of the seat that she took. Upon sitting, he began to try and scrape away the ice-crystals and snow that had frozen on his face. She saw that he was a mix of maroon and white coloring underneath all the snow, and his eyes were a vibrant amethyst. She cleared her throat.

"Sorry about that," she muttered quietly so that only he could hear. "But at least it turned out alright, and you're not out in the cold any more."

The Exo said nothing, but just stared at her silently as he rubbed his arms to generate friction and warmth back into them. She was surprised to see suspicion in his eyes. "Is there something wrong?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just not used to having anyone try to help me, and I'm a bit confused as to why you did."

"What do you mean?"

He pointed at himself emphatically. "Look at me, I'm an Exo! An inorganic! I don't have emotions, right? Nothing other than property that's incapable of feeling?" he asked, bitterness ever apparent in his voice. Scorch was pained to hear him talk about himself like this, probably due to hearing nothing else for the entirety of his life. She remarked on how few Exos she'd seen in her time growing up, and this was probably why; what reason would they have to interact with humans and Awoken if they were just rejected every time?

She pursed her lips. "I don't believe in that crap. The whole, 'they don't have emotions' thing is utter garbage, I've seen it up-close." The Exo looked astonished at her radically different view, and she looked away. "I wish I could say that I was like this forever, but I know that when I was younger I used to believe it; I didn't have any other people taking care of me when I was living on the streets, and I knew nothing save for what they told me. All those stereotypes, the beliefs that the people of the city held, I had them too for a time."

She shrugged. "But I stopped when I met Spectre. He gave me a better understanding of them, and I came to realize that the best way to live the way I did was to stick together as a community, to take care of one another and watch out for each other. Didn't matter if you were organic or not. Of course," she said, shame creeping into her voice as she thought about her initial feelings about Matt and Ash's relationship, feelings that she'd buried a long time ago in the back of her mind, "previous biases do try to come up every now and again. It's just a matter of shoving them back down in favor of what I believe now."

The Exo said nothing, but his mouth was slightly agape. She supposed that he hadn't heard an opinion like hers in a long time, perhaps ever. He quickly shut it again, probably trying to save face. He grunted. "Who are you?"

"Scorch. And you?" she responded.

He took a moment before replying, "Name's Rook-4. Obviously, you can leave off the number." She nodded, grateful for him sharing his information with her.

"Out of curiosity, why didn't you shut off your neuro-sensors? I mean, that would take care of the cold problem right?" she asked. Rook appeared to ponder that for a moment, and then shrugged.

"It just doesn't feel right. Like, imagine as if every sensory input of yours was suddenly turned off; you can't taste, hear, see, or feel anything." He gestured to himself. "Obviously it doesn't go that far, but the feeling is the same; my sense of feeling is the one thing that keeps my feeling like a normal person, and I don't like to give it up unless I have to, no matter how uncomfortable it gets."

She could understand that, not wanting to sacrifice such a valuable sense. Not only was it probably valued highly by him, but not having it on could probably lead to a vulnerability of being unable to sense what's going on around him. And he would probably have to constantly be on his toes and aware of his surroundings if he was living out on the streets in this part of the city.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" That question came as a surprise, and she found his purple eyes staring intently at her. "There's no way a Guardian like you just decided to come out to this place for no reason." She sighed.

"I had a fight with a good friend of mine. I may have completely destroyed our friendship, and I was trying to find somewhere I could be alone and let my regret and guilt hit me full force. We both went too far; but I was absolutely in the wrong concerning the argument." Scorch looked away shamefully. "I brought up the one person he couldn't save, the one person that he failed to keep from dying, and it wasn't even his fault. I don't know if I can ever make it up to him, but I sure as hell have to try."

Rook cocked his head curiously. "I'm sure that he'll find it in him to forgive you."

She raised an eyebrow in doubt. "And what makes you say that?"

He fidgeted slightly. "In my experience, I've found that forgiveness comes a lot more easily when genuine remorse and regret is involved. An apology is never quite as effective unless there's sincerity to it. You seem to be kicking yourself pretty hard, and I'm sure he realizes it." Her eyes widened slightly, seeing that he was more familiar with relationships than he'd let on.

"Really?"

He nodded. "I mean, I've been cast aside from society for my whole life, treated like nothing but something to be taken advantage of by everyone I meet."

"What does that prove?"

"Well, I'm sitting here talking with you, right?"

She was taken aback. He looked down. "Organics have done nothing but rebuke me, and yet I saw someone who was willing to take a stand for me. I could have thrown it back in your face… but I'm of the opinion that everyone deserves a second chance." He gestured to the bar around them. "These people are angry at Exos because they don't understand us, because they think that we're nothing except unfeeling machines. But I'm willing to give them a second chance because I see now that a few of you don't follow the majority's example." He pointed at her.

"Your friend was angry with you because he probably thought that you didn't care about what you said, and had no remorse. It's pretty obvious to me that you do, and I think you just need to prove that to him." He sat back in his chair, and Scorch remarked inwardly once again at how deceptively wise Rook was.

Looking down, she saw that she'd finished her drink. There was no real point in sticking around since she had a feeling that the bartender was going to be quite reluctant to get her a refill, but she didn't want to leave Rook alone; no doubt as soon as she left, the bartender would throw the Exo out into the cold. An idea struck her.

"C'mon, let's get out of here." His eyes widened.

"What, out into the cold?"

She shook her head. "I just doubt that the bartender is gonna let you stay after I leave, so I've got a different plan. You coming or not?"

Rook debated with himself for a moment before he hesitantly stood up to leave with her.

-X-

Her apartment door swung open with a creak. She stepped inside, Rook following behind tentatively.

"I was offered a place at the tower," explained Scorch as Spectre began to transmat her gear onto the floor, "but I kept my apartment in addition to my new room there. It was the first home I really earned on my own and I keep around for whenever I need to get away for a bit."

He looked around, taking it all in before she threw a blanket and pillow at him. "What is this?" he asked, confused at what she was doing. She pointed to one of the two large couches she had.

"I don't expect you want to sleep out in the cold, do you?" She saw his hands raising to protest, and immediately cut him off. "I'm serious, it's not a big deal. I'm gonna crash here on this one, so feel free to take either the bed or the other couch." She dragged her own blanket and pillow over to one of the couches, and laid down on it, pulling the sheets over her body.

Rook debated with himself for just a few seconds before coming to the understanding that he most likely wouldn't get an offer like this ever again, and he sat down on the couch that she'd indicated was free for him. He set his pillow behind his head, and let his head rest on it as he stared around the dark room.

"You know," he began, "I've never had one before."

"What," she mumbled jokingly, "a bed?"

"Well, yeah," he chuckled in response, "but I meant a friend. You're the first person who's ever stood up for me like that."

He turned to her, and purple eyes met hazel. "Thank you." Then, he turned away and fell silent, both of them falling asleep quickly from the events that had transpired that night.

-X-

 _The Acolyte scrambled away from his master, fearing punishment for bringing such tragic news. He did not realize that the master held no ill will towards him; he would not mercilessly butcher his own soldiers, he'd been trained better than that._

 _Instead, he turned to the great oversoul above and roared in fury to the void. His greatest apprentice, his protege; slaughtered by those filthy bags of flesh. And the crystal he'd tethered his soul to so long ago, his only current presence in the mortal realm- destroyed. Now, he had no way to forcefully bring himself back without help from the worms._

 _Having expended his anger, his chest heaved with exhilaration. He would not allow Omnigul's death to be in vain. When they came for him- and he knew they would come for him, what other reason would they have to target her and the crystal?- he would kill them all, stick them all upon the spit of his sword._

 _Crota would have his vengeance._


	8. ASIDE: GND Character Profiles!

Hey guys! How's it going? You all excited for the next chapter to be released, because I sure am! In fact, I'm writing it right now, but there's something cool I wanted to do for you guys first!

See, I've had a few people PM me before about the look of the characters in relation to how they would look in-game, namely what specific Exo face is Ash, and how Eager looks (probably because I found it hard to describe him when I first introduced him). I looked at those and thought, "Man, wouldn't it be cool to have a profile pic for each of the characters so that my readers know what they look like?"

Well, I went and did just that!

Spent about an hour yesterday going through the game's customization, taking screenshots and then another one editing them with cropping and cleaning them up. So now, I have a picture for each of the six main characters, as well as two bonus characters; Sara and Rook.

Also, you may notice a few hints for the future story in the descriptions and customization for each image. I'm not going to confirm or deny anything you guys throw at me, but I might help you out if any of you should come up with any particular theories (specifically a big one I'm thinking about)...

Anyway, here they are in an easy-to-view Imgur album!

 **imgur[dot com]/gallery/3gtD4**

(Obviously just write it regularly, I only have it this way because the filters here are ridiculously strict.)

Again, I'm not going to confirm any theories, but I certainly don't mind leading you in the right direction!

As for discussing your theories or just commenting on anything you like in general, go ahead and leave them in the reviews for this chapter! I make sure to read each and every one of them, so feel free! Happy collaborating!

\- Matteoarts


	9. Choices

Ash walked out of the infirmary, eager to get away from the doctors and all their rules at last. Plus, she'd undergone quite the night.

Her plating had been completely replaced all over her body. At first, it had just started with her torso. That had been necessary, lest she walk around with a gaping hole in her chest for a while. The new plating was made from carbon fiber rather than the more common steel alloys, making her significantly tougher and lighter than she'd been before.

But it was white with black accents and streaks, not white and silver like the rest of her body. And she'd felt a bit off with this new addition while the rest of her body was still the same. She'd reasoned that the other parts of her body were likely wearing away anyway from years of battle and strain too, and so had opted to just go ahead and have the rest of her body's plating replaced as well with the new carbon fiber material and paint scheme.

She still retained the same proportions as before save for being roughly two inches shorter shorter due to the density and strength of the new material not needing to be as thick to protect her; she had less bulky plating than she did before on her feet and legs, and so lost a tiny bit of height. She was fine with it however; the trade off had been worth it. Her body was sleeker than it had ever been, lighter and tougher, and the new paint scheme was actually pretty enticing to her, with the black streaks accentuating her otherwise white form perfectly. She felt that this was likely how organic women felt when they received a makeover or bought new clothes.

Even her face had been updated; no longer was it simply white and silver, but rather white and black. The metal of her mouth now had several black components to compliment her white, and a black plate sat in the center of her head, in stark contrast with the rest of her face. Intricate black designs were curved around too, surrounding the bottom of her outer eyes and flowing down her cheeks. She honestly felt refreshed; when she'd seen herself in the mirror, she'd felt- maybe not pretty, that was an odd word for her to describer herself as- but definitely new, improved. She was happy with her new height, weight, body, and face. All of it was great.

As soon as that thought had crossed her mind, she tripped on her own feet as she walked towards the hall where her quarters were. Blast it; she was going to have to get used to her new weight to height ratio unless she wanted to be tripping over everything. She wasn't the only one either; she wondered how Matt would react to her new form. Would he be surprised? Excited? She supposed that he'd find out in the morning, she was exhausted and just wanted some sleep at the moment.

Upon coming to both her own room and Matt's, she debated with herself over whether or not to enter his and crash there. She decided against it, reasoning that he was likely just as tired as she was; he'd come back later and sat with her until night had fallen and she'd told him to get some rest. He'd resisted of course, but she didn't want him exhausted on account of her so she'd sent him off. She would avoid waking him for right now, and walked into her own room.

Groaning, she pulled off the makeshift change of disposable clothes they'd given her while they operated. She'd have to grab her confiscated armor tomorrow, and start looking for a replacement chest-piece now that her current one was completely destroyed. Once she was rid of the clothing, she looked over her nude form in the mirror.

Maybe nude was the wrong word to use; something felt off, like she was different. She dragged her finger across the surface of her chest, tracing the new black markings that adorned it, and eventually placing her hand on the breast of her chest where the damage had been before they'd fixed her. Being carbon fiber, it definitely felt slightly softer than the regular steel alloy it had been before, but she still felt the hard resistance. That annoyed her, and the fact that it annoyed her in and of itself annoyed her. Why should she feel odd in her own body so suddenly? She felt comfortable, much less bulky than before, she was lighter, slimmer, what was wrong?

She looked down at her left arm, also sporting new black plates with interesting patterns etched upon them. On a hunch, she reached over with her free arm, and gently performed the proper procedure to remove the plate gently and carefully.

Upon removing the black plate, she saw what she expected to see; her basic machine-like skeleton within. An array of different mechanisms and machinery working together to assist in the movement of her arm; the metal cylindrical frame that acted as her 'bone' in the middle, different vein-like cables and tubes carrying her blue blood throughout her system to keep it running, and the intricate sheets of gel-like substance that were stuck to the inside of her exo-skeleton, her neuro-sensors that allowed her to touch and feel like a human.

 _Like_ a human.

That was it, she now realized. She was uncomfortable because she'd finally seen herself exactly the way that everyone else saw her; as a complicated and highly sophisticated piece of machinery. But at the end of the day, it was just that- machinery. She'd always thought of herself to be more human than she actually was to some degree, but here was concrete proof to the opposite staring right back at her in the mirror. She didn't have the soft, delicate skin that humans did; hers was hard and durable. She didn't have the organic eyes that blinked because it was necessary; she had ones that lit up because of circuits powering them, and 'blinking' because that's how they were programmed. She had no genitals or real breasts, it was all just… metal.

 _She_ was just metal.

This was a real wake-up call for her. This was the real her; not a human, not any kind of organic; she was a machine. A complicated system of moving parts and circuits that worked together to help her function. All of her likeness to humans was due to the way that she'd originally been built, whenever that had been. If one were to strip her of all her plating and other parts, she would be an endo-skeleton frame at her core. The thought of that frightened her.

But then what did that say about her? She knew that Exos didn't have souls originally when they'd first been built by humanity, but rather had been gifted them by the Traveler. But was it truly a soul? Many humans believed in an afterlife of some kind. If she died, would she be able to enter it according to human beliefs? Did she qualify as a living creature? Or could she even die as they did? Would she really just fade away from existence, her programming ceasing to be capable of working?

Where were all these thoughts coming from? She hadn't ever thought this deeply about herself, and she wondered what was so worrying to her in light of this revelation-

And then she found it. Of course it was Matt, as most things she was worried about concerned. He was human, she wasn't. How hadn't she seen this before? Or- had she already seen it, but pushed it out of her mind?

How would others see them? They'd been together for nearly three years, but had kept their relationship secret from everyone except for Aria. Ash was no fool, and she knew perfectly well how people in the city saw Exos. What would they say if they knew? They'd probably accuse Matt of being perverted, seeking the company of a machine rather than an organic. And she'd be seen as nothing more than an object mimicking emotions and feelings, considering that they didn't think that Exos were capable of such things, let alone of loving someone.

She may be one of the Heroes, but that's all; people saw her as a team member that was made to do her job and expect nothing more, certainly not to have a personal life of her own.

And what did Matt think of her? That thought stung as it crossed her mind. She knew that he definitely loved her… but did he really? Did he see her as she was, or just as a human with the body of a machine? Nothing of hers was actually human; her soul, her true self apart from her physical body, was complicated; all Exos minds had been based off different human minds, volunteers to give imprints of their brains but not quite; they had acted simply as examples that Exo systems had used to adapt to human behavior from the supplied memories and neural networks. Then the Traveler had come, and actually allowed the Exos to live; they weren't just a system of coding and artificial intelligence any longer, they were living souls with different physical make-ups.

But try telling that to the city today; they wouldn't believe it if the evidence was smacking them right in the nose. As far as they were concerned, nobody could truly know if Exos had souls and feelings unless they were one, and humans were certainly not Exos. So they kept up their harsh and racist beliefs, forcing most Exos to take on the most ironic job; defending humanity and the very people that had prevented them from being accepted by society as normal.

"Ash?" Whip's synthetic voice startled her, and she immediately jerked away from the noise. He backed off for a moment, and then came closer once she saw it was him and had calmed herself. "Are you alright?"

She nodded numbly, the lie came easily enough. Whatever she was feeling, it was anything but okay. Perhaps she'd just had a revelation, or an epiphany, but one thing was for sure; she was shaken in the security and stability of her and Matt's relationship, and there would definitely need to be a discussion about this with him later.

-X-

Scorch awoke with a jolt, realizing that her head was hanging off the side of the couch at an awkward angle, and now she had a crick in her neck. Grunting, she pushed herself back up to her pillow, and cracked her neck to the left and right, hearing the vertebrae crackle loudly in an attempt to rid herself of the neck-pain. As she turned, she noticed that light was shining in through the window, a sure sign that it was late morning.

The events of the previous night were starting to come back to her, and she looked around for a sign of the maroon Exo from last night. Glancing over to the front door, she saw Rook slumped against the wall, watching her.

"It's about time," he muttered. She looked from him to where he'd gone to sleep last night confusedly.

"What are you doing all the way over there?"

He shrugged. "I tried to leave. Didn't want to overstay my welcome. Unfortunately," he grumbled, "this guy here wouldn't let me. Said that you wouldn't stand for it." He pointed to the air on his right where Spectre materialized a moment later. The Ghost faced her and bent his sides downward, the equivalent of a shrug for him.

"What can I say? I figured you wouldn't want him to leave without saying good-bye properly."

She raised an eyebrow at Rook. "Well, he's right. I wouldn't think that's how _friends_ would treat one another." She emphasized the term he'd used for them last night, and he seemed surprised that she agreed with it so loosely. She smirked at his reaction.

"C'mon, stand up." She beckoned for him to get off the floor as she stood up and walked over to her room. He waited outside for her to return.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she replied as she walked back out, "I just wanted to change out of those clothes." Indeed, she had similar garments on, but not the same ones she'd worn the night before; new jacket and pants, but she still wore the same fingerless gloves as she had yesterday. "Alright, let's go."

"Go?"

She nodded. "I want to get out for a bit, take a walk or something. You alright with that? Or are you trying to take off early?"

At this, the Exo's jawline set tight, but he said nothing. She ignored it, and continued on to walk out the door. He came out a moment after she did, and she locked the door.

-X-

"Okay, so what's with the name?"

Scorch turned to Rook at his question. They were walking down the block, their feet crunching on the thin layer of snow that had settled upon the ground over the course of the night while they maintained several discussions with one another. He shrugged. "What? You've got to admit it's a weird name, I highly doubt it's your real one."

Without saying a word, she pointed to her left cheek. His eyes widened for a moment before he planted his face into his hand. "Okay, I probably should have guessed that one," he grumbled as she laughed.

"Yeah, I mean it's not like it was literally staring you in the face," she joked.

"Alright, it was a dumb question. But then how'd you get it?"

Her joking tone disappeared as memories started to resurface. He saw the change in her expression, and immediately tried to rectify his mistake. "Hey, if it's too personal, don't worry about it! I was just-"

"No, it's fine." She sighed deeply. "I was a kid during the battle for the Traveler. I had to watch as the city was destroyed and the Darkness's forces swept in, killing everything in their path. My family turned out to be one of those things, and they were killed right in front of me by a pack of Fallen." _Slaughtered_ was probably a more accurate term, but she didn't want to open that door of specificities.

"One of the Captains had a Scorch cannon, and by some miracle I managed to dodge at the last moment. It still grazed me though," she said pointing to her scar, "and cauterized the flesh. I just decided to start going by 'Scorch' once I was living on the streets because a badass scar and name can earn you more respect than you'd think." She chuckled slightly.

Rook was silent for a few moments as they walked, before finally turning his purple eyes to her and saying softly, "I'm sorry about that. I'd say you probably had it worse than me, or any Exo I know for that matter."

She shook her head. "Nah, at least I'm not discriminated against everywhere I go."

"But you lost everything!" he argued, articulating his points with random hand movements. "You had a home, a family, and you lost it all and then were thrown into a life you had no idea of how to deal with!" He shuddered. "At least I've been this way for all my life; I had years to adapt and learn how to survive out here. And I never had a family or anything to lose either."

"I have a new family, though." She smiled at him and his shocked reaction to the insanity she was uttering. "I've got Dawn and Eager, as well as Matt, Ash, Aria… we're always there for each other." She looked down. "Or, at least they're always there for me." She smirked at him. "So no, I'd say that you have it much worse than I do."

This time, he also chuckled. "Oh, I know that. I was only referring to your childhood; it's more than apparent that you're much better off than I am now." The nonchalant way with which he'd said something so serious raised alarm bells in her head. How did he treat all of this so normally?

Suddenly, his eyes grew wide. "Duck!"

When she hesitated, he grabbed behind her shoulders and pushed her down as a glass bottle came flying from somewhere off to the left, accompanied by a gleeful shout. It smashed against the side of the building next to them, sending glass shards in every which way. Scorch looked back up to see two men in ratty clothes across the street, turning around and running now that their targets weren't off their guard.

She waved her fist at them while yelling, "Why, you-!"

But Rook pulled her arm back down. "Don't, it's not worth it."

She shook her head. "How do you all deal with this? I knew it was bad, but not _this_ bad. Why don't the Vanguards do anything about this?"

"I'm sure they'd love to, but you said it yourself last night; they're busy protecting all of humanity. Who has the time to go around and help _every_ Exo in the city?" He shook his head at the thought. "I don't blame them at all for this; if they had the ability to, I'm sure they'd take it in an instant."

Scorch considered this; maybe Rook was right. She was especially sure that Cayde wouldn't let the rest of his race go on like this without good reason. Then another idea struck her.

"Hey, you want to come to the tower?"

He stopped walking for a second, registering what she'd just asked. "What?"

"Seriously. Do you want to see the tower?"

He narrowed his eyes suddenly, his mood performing a complete turnaround. "Why are you doing all of this?"

The question threw her off guard. "What do you mean?" She raised an eyebrow in confusion, clueless as to why he was asking.

"I mean, why are you doing all of this; you stood up for me last night, you offered me a place to sleep, and now you want me to go with you to the tower. What's up with you?" This sudden suspicion was a curveball for her, she had no idea that he'd been feeling this way at all.

"People don't just come down here and immediately set to work righting all the world's wrongs," he continued, "or else the racism issue would have been solved long ago. Is there some particular reason you're doing this? Something personal to you perhaps?"

Was there? She thought hard; why had she suddenly been going against her long-since buried biases? She knew what she believed now, her two best friends and fireteam members were both Exos, what was the issue?

Her thoughts eventually trailed to Cayde. His own plight and problems that he'd dealt with, and his revelation of how people would see Matt and Ash's relationship. Was she doing all of this because she was trying to invalidate her own beliefs, to fight for her friends in her own way?

He saw the questions she was asking herself behind her eyes, and came to the conclusion he was right. "You said you don't believe in Exos not having emotion because you've seen it up close; what did you mean by that? Do you know someone, a friend of yours that's dealing with these issues perhaps?"

Once again, she had to give credit where it was due; the Exo was wiser than he let others know. She sighed.

"Two of my best friends are in a romantic relationship; one of them is human, the other is an Exo. And yeah, I'm sure they do deal with discrimination because of it." She waved her arm dismissively at him, "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"It has to do with our entire interaction." He crossed his arms. "See, this is how I'm looking at it; you used to have some prejudices against Exos, you said it yourself. Those prejudices seemed buried, but you find them coming back now that you see your friends in such a relationship with each other. In an effort to prove to yourself both that you're not racist and that you're in support of their choice, you see an Exo in need and use the guilty feelings inside you to go against the popular mindset of the city, help that Exo, and use those actions as evidence to justify that you're not racist."

She said nothing, realizing that he'd hit the nail pretty much on the head. He rolled his eyes and summarized it all with another line, "So basically I'm just a metaphor for your friends' relationship, and the only reason you helped me was because of the guilty feelings you were having."

"No, that's not-"

"That's not it? Tell me, do you think you would have been so willing to go this far if that wasn't it? Maybe you still would have stood up for me in the bar, but would you have sat with me? Would you have offered me a place to stay, and now offered to take me there?" he asked as he jabbed a finger at the tower, seen far off in the distance. "I was just a stranger, not a friend; so why all the help?"

She couldn't respond, trying to sort through her own feelings and thoughts. Was it true? She wanted to think that it wasn't, but something that he was saying was ringing true with her.

He sighed heavily, seeing the stress he was putting her through. "Look, maybe you are someone who would just do those things out of the kindness of your heart, but I've seen a lot of people over my years, and I've never seen anyone like that. So forgive me for being a bit cynical."

He thought for a moment, and then looked her in the eye. "Alright, here's what's going to happen. You're gonna head back to your friends, and you're gonna take care of all the issues between you and them. Once that's done, go ahead and think over what I've said. If you still think that our… interaction isn't just based on feelings of guilt, then come find me." He pulled the hood of his jacket up, and nodded in her direction before he began to walk away.

"Wait!" she called out, "where are you going?"

"I'm not making it easy" he called back, "you can figure it out when you have the chance. Like I said, if you're truly motivated then you'll be able to find me. But give it a few days thought first, hmm?" With that, he turned down an alleyway and disappeared from sight.

Scorch watched the spot where he'd just vanished from view as though expecting him to reappear. Not only had he accused her of being friendly only because of her inner shame, but he might have been right. And now he was gone, leaving her to mull over her choices.

This was not a good week for her friendships.

-X-

Matt jolted out of bed, his arm already swinging defensively with his fingers curled tightly around the hilt of the knife he kept hidden under his pillow. He'd been shaken from sleep by some unknown entity, and was now in a combat state of mind.

"Slow down there, unless you want to send me right back into the infirmary after I just got out."

He recognized the female voice to belong to Ash, and his eyes quickly adjusted to the light in his room. She was standing in front of him with her arms crossed, a smirk playing across her face at his wild behavior. PTSD was a real bitch to deal with, but at least they could make some light of it in situations like these. Now he was just standing around in the dirty clothes he'd slept in last night, a knife in his hand like a psychotic idiot. He threw it back under his pillow while Seraph woke up from the commotion.

"Despite what it may have looked like, that was not my intention," he joked lightly. "Now, what's-" Suddenly, her face caught his eye.

"Whoa. That's… new." She immediately knew he was referring to the black markings and plating on her head, and she nodded.

"Yeah. They were just going to replace the plating on my chest, but I asked if they could do it for the rest of my body as well. For all intents and purposes, I have a completely different body." She looked down, gesturing to her form. "No more steel alloys, it's all carbon fiber; lighter, stronger-"

"Shorter?" he asked, and moved over next to her. Whereas she'd been not quite as tall as him before, she now stood even lower and it was certainly noticeable. The top of her head only came up to his eyebrows now, and she was wearing shoes to help.

She shrugged. "The carbon fiber is denser, meaning I don't have to have as thick of plating on my feet and legs to have the same protection. Without that thickness of the material, I lost a lot of weight but also a few inches. It's not a big deal."

"Wow, the black works really well with your white," Matt commented, tracing the artistic highlights on her cheek. "Beautiful work; I'd love to see how amazing the rest of your body looks." He winked slyly as he made such a comment, teasing her just a bit.

Usually, she would have accepted such a compliment, but her eyes suddenly seemed to appear downcast. "Hey?" He tried to get her to look at him. "Everything alright with you?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine; I just had a long night, and I'd rather not talk about my body right now. You said you had a contact or someone you needed to talk to last night?" He saw through the lie easily, but did not tell her; the trick to finding out what was wrong would be to let things progress, and if she wanted to come forward with whatever it was, then she would. But he had a feeling it had something to do with her new changes; she didn't want to talk about her body. Why?

"Matt?" She waved a hand in front of his face, trying to grab his attention. He cleared his thoughts, and smiled at her.

"Yeah, I have something planned. I just have to make sure it didn't fall through. Let me change into some clean clothes."

-X-

Eager nodded his head at the report before him. Now that Omnigul's forces had breached the city's boundaries, he'd been sending scouts out to report on enemy movements ever day. Luckily, the case seemed to be that without their general, most of the hive were reluctant to organize any kind of offensive. This was providing a bit of a respite for the Vanguards to plan and strengthen their defenses around the city.

He turned to leave his office and hand over the report to the Vanguards, but he jerked backwards when he was startled by the sudden appearance of a familiar Hunter looming over his shoulder.

"Goddamn it, Matt! Can't Hunters ever just say something like, 'I'm here!' rather than trying to scare the crap out of people to announce their presence?"

Matt smirked. "Sorry, afraid I can't do that. It's almost a requirement." He looked to the left and right to make sure they were alone. "Hey, you know what I asked you about yesterday?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Eager, waving his hand at Matt dismissively. "I'll have it taken care of while you two are out. But that's it, I can't be providing anything else for you."

Matt nodded his appreciation. "Thanks, Eager. I owe you one."

Eager shrugged. "It's the least I can do, man. I know that you and Scorch are in a bit of a rough patch right now," he muttered, "but that doesn't mean that I can't be on good terms with you, right?"

Matt smiled. "You got that right. I'll see you later."

Eager gave a flick of his wrist in Matt's direction, and then walked past him to continue his objective in delivering the scouts' report. Matt waited a few seconds, and then followed after him.

The offices of the task force were down a few levels in the tower, and had to be reached by elevator. He grabbed the next lift up to the courtyard, and waited to reach his destination. He had a big day planned for him an Ash; he was going to take advantage of the break that Cayde had ordered him to take.

Once he reached the top level, he made his way over to the railing where he'd asked Ash to wait for him. She turned when she heard his shoes brushing against the grass behind her. "There you are! I was beginning to wonder if you were ever coming back up." She wore clothing to match his own casual style today; a tan jacket, black pants, and her regular boots. Her eyes were watching him intently, trying to figure out exactly what he'd been doing. It was funny how much information he could gather just from watching those blue eyes of hers.

He shrugged nonchalantly, playing it off like there was no big deal. "Sorry. Anyway, we should be good to go."

"Go? Go where?"

"Well," he began, "the Vanguards ordered me to take a break from any missions for a while, at least until you're completely recovered and good to go."

She smirked. "So, what are you doing?"

"I'm taking a break from any missions for a while."

She gasped in mock-surprise. "Who are you, and what have you done with Matt?!"

He rolled his eyes with a light smile on his face. "I know, I know. Incredible, right?"

"More like, 'never though it'd happen in a million years'," she laughed. "So, where are we going then?"

"Just down into the city. Walk around and talk, grab something to eat, you name it." He looked over at her. "You and I are going to have some quality time for once. Someone else can cover the hard stuff for once."

She looked surprised. Maybe she hadn't thought that he'd do all of this just for her? No, it was more than that. Probably the same thing that had been bugging her earlier.

As they set off for the hangar to grab their ship, he could only hope that the rest of today went smoothly. He was going to spend some alone time with his girlfriend for once, goddamn it.


	10. Very Important

Hello all; this is actually an important announcement from me to you.

I've been writing the next chapter as best as I can, but I keep coming up empty. At first I attributed it to simply not knowing the best way for the scenario to work, but after thirteen different drafts of this chapter (what, did you think I haven't updated in so long for no reason?), I realized why I was having such a difficult time.

I'm unhappy with the series as of now.

Now, I'm not saying that I'm unhappy writing this series; I love it, and I have huge plans for the story in the future. So don't jump to conclusions and think I'm giving up! Let me explain. Right now, I left you all off where Matt is taking Ash out to hang out with her for a day, correct? Matt and Ash's relationship has been one of the staple points of the series so far, and it's alluded to in every book so far; from their beginning in the first book, to Scorch's observation in the second, to the current Exo controversy in the third. So what's the deal?

Their relationship has ruined many parts of the book, and so I'm going to be breaking them up.

Now, before you freak out; I don't mean permanently, or even currently; in fact, their relationship by the current point in the third book should remain relatively the same. So, for current readers and shippers of Matt/Ash (Mash? Att? Wtf), you have nothing to worry about.

So what do I mean then? Well, let's start off with how their relationship has ruined things; in the first book, I wrote the beginning of their romance quite sloppily. I like to think I'm a great writer, not trying to boast; I've been writing an original book for possible publication, I script screenplays and films, I'm a damn good writer. Which means I also have to be the first to admit when I fuck up, and here it is;

The way I wrote the start of their relationship was total shit.

They were rushed into it. The subtle nods to it with the hellmouth and them starting to show signs of their affection were fine, but as to how the actual relationship started? It was basically, "Yo, we're here at the reef and our teammate might die, I kinda like you dawg" "Yih yah, bro, let's be an item" It was lazy, and completely jumbled together, and I'm somewhat embarrassed at how poorly I drafted it.

With having their relationship begin in the first book, Aria was shunted from a main character to a side character as the plot focused more on Matt and Ash. She's supposed to be an equal member of the team, not a sideshow for when nothing's going on with them. But instead, she rarely became a main perspective after that.

In the second book, nothing was ruined thankfully because the focus was on Fireteam Seeker. But now in the third book, almost all of the conflict between everyone has been driven by Matt and Ash and how protective they are of one another. They are the main characters, and everyone else is playing second fiddle; I can't have that. I wish I could be fine with it, but I can't continue writing in good conscience while the rest of the story sits like this.

So I'm going to be going back and heavily editing several chapters in the first and third book. The second book will undergo a few revisions story-wise that aren't related to Matt or Ash, and hopefully I come out of this with a better story. Until all the revisions are done, I'm not going to post the new chapter; I will let you guys know when I've finished, and then you can continue or go back and re-read the revised chapters.

I hope you all choose to stick with me here,

\- Matteoarts


	11. THIS STORY IS NO LONGER ACCURATE

ATTENTION:

The current book you are reading has not been updated along with the versions in the collection, so the information here is no longer accurate.

If you would like these stories in their updated/revised versions, you can simply go to my story page by clicking my username, and select "Guardians Never Die" from there. That is the collection of the books in their updated forms, and will remain that way in the future.

These versions of the books will no longer be updated, and will instead be written and added to the story listed above.

Thank you for understanding!

-Matteoarts


End file.
